The Usual Suspects?
by Facepalmistry
Summary: …But not necessarily from the usual places! The PTB are recruiting for a long-term mission to a distant, uncertain future – and this time, they're actually desperate enough to ask first. Their first recruit? Buffy Summers, from the end of "Chosen". Ensemble cast. (Oh, and: NOT a Buffy/Whistler pairing.) Now complete, for the main part.
1. We Want You, Buffy Summers!

**Disclaimer:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, and their characters and settings are not mine. The many variations found within this fic could be considered mine, but only in the sense that I imagined and wrote of them. And I can't imagine that line of thinking standing up in court, so please don't sue?

 **Rating: T**

 **Warnings (fic):** _moderate_ violence  & language, _mild_ sexual references, _moderate_ spoilers.

 **Summary:** The usual suspects …But not necessarily from the usual places! The PTB are recruiting for a long-term mission to a distant, uncertain future – and this time, they're actually desperate enough to _ask_ first. Their first recruit? Buffy Summers, from the end of "Chosen".

 **A/N:** The initial inspiration for this one came from an Honorverse (Honor Harrington book series) crossover posted on Twisting the Hellmouth by 'DeacBlue', in which the Scoobies and mini-Slayers on the bus are transported into the future right at the end of Chosen. Nice idea, I thought – but why the hell does Xander, or Giles for that matter, get invited to a time and place where man-made viruses can hijack people? Is this not inviting disaster? So some thought went into how that could be fixed, and the shit just rolled downhill from there.

The future this mission-team is off to is 'uncertain' and unspecified, _and will remain that way_. The PTB's brief could work for Honorverse, but also for something like Firefly, Babylon 5, March Upcountry, Lensman or a bunch of others. Either way, I honestly don't care to write that far. This is meant to be a fairly short work, and enough characterisation and canon fact-checks are needed as it is without trying to fold another, completely separate bundle of canon into it. Someday I will do a proper crossover, with all that work sunk into it to the best of my ability – but this is not that fic.

As the title and summary hint at, not all the usual suspects (i.e the Scoobies and A.I. crew) will be from the same realm, or the same timeframe. Some, such as Buffy, will be from something that might as well be the canon-realm. Several of them will not. TUS also serves as a vehicle in which to load some alternate characters from divergences I can't be arsed writing up in full right now – most of which are _not_ from Xander-specific divergences like I've tended to post thus far. But read on and you'll see…

 **Feedback:** Yes, please! Especially should you desire to adapt your own versions of the offered divergences – they'll be popping up soon enough.

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter One: We Want You, Buffy Summers!**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

' _…And once again, I'm basked._ '

Flush with satisfaction she might be, and for good reason – hey, she'd just helped close a _Hellmouth_! – but that didn't stop her from feeling extremely tired. And dirty. And sticky. And feeling in general like she'd been beaten on by Turok'Han and then run through with a sword. What a coincidence, huh?

There were things to do still, as much as she approved of Faith's suggestion about just sleeping for a week. Getting to a place with beds, and showers and food, kinda required finding them first. Not to mention professionals of a medical persuasion – Buffy was pretty sure she'd walk off being impaled by this point (ah, the quips yet flow!), but ex-Principal Wood was going to have problems. And Slayer healing or not, a bottle of Advil was still queen. King being the preferred bed-size. Alone. Without having to share with a bunch of teenage girls.

At least Angel had a whole hotel for them to crash in – according to Willow and Faith, at least. She'd never actually seen it. Maybe she should call ahead, give them time to change the bedding?

Maybe she _was_ a little out of it. Her thoughts were going all over the place.

Buffy closed her eyes for a minute. Inhale, hold, exhale…

She opened her eyes. And froze.

…

Literally. She couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.

And what with who was standing before her, she knew exactly who to blame.

:: _Hey there, Slayer._ :: The telepathic greeting bypassed the ears and sunk into her brain like grease into skin, the nasal Brooklyn accent grating on her nerves. She tried to glare at him, but her face was still frozen.

' _Whistler…_ ' she mentally ground out.

:: _Ease up, girl,_ :: Whistler replied. :: _Nothing suspect here. I'm just here with an offer…_ :: There was a short pause. With nothing else to do but panic or try to gather what she could, Buffy noticed that Whistler seemed to be frozen as well. She also noticed that the others had stopped talking. And that she no longer felt the breeze on her skin. Even the sun's warmth was absent. :: _Oh, and yeah – I can hear you thinking._ ::

Answers? Yay, she guessed… ' _What's going on? What are you doing here?_ '

:: _Okay, first up? Time's frozen, or at least slowed to a really slow crawl. We're thinking at the speed of thought here, toots. But that's the_ only _thing we're doing at the speed of thought. Not as complicated – not as obvious, neither. Just us chatting for a couple minutes without anyone noticing._ ::

Buffy wanted to frown. The Balance Demon was being suspiciously _nice_. Far nicer than he'd been the last time they'd crossed paths…

:: _What, you're surprised? I'm here to offer you something. An opportunity…_ ::

And there it was. The dust not even settled on Sunnydale, and the PTB wanted even more from her.

:: _Here's the thing, though. This? It's entirely optional. We want you, sure. But… you know Multiverse theory? The whole 'everything's gotta happen_ somewhere _' theme? Yeah, there are at least hundreds of other versions of ya, standing round in front of their own craters. You're just the first one I happened to come and ask._ ::

' _So go ask them,_ ' she thought at him with as much snark as she could muster in her mind.

:: _Aw c'mon Slayer, at least hear me out! I haven't even got to the offer!_ :: Whistler pleaded.

Buffy mentally sighed. ' _…What?_ '

:: _Right, two things. First one: you, Buffy Summers, are key to this world. You got things to do, and you know it. And you gotta be here to do them. But… we really need you somewhere else too. Somewhere far, far away._ :: Whistler rushed on before she could interrupt. :: _So if you agree – and ya gotta agree first, we can twin you off._ ::

Buffy tried to make sense of that statement, but she was honestly too tired. And that was generously assuming there was any sense at all in what he'd just said.

' _Huh?_ '

:: _Think that Ferula Gemina rod from a couple years back. Only – both of you live, just as you are now, completely separate. None of that 'one dies, you both die' stuff. The you who stays here, doesn't even remember this, not less you really want to. Same if you say no – you gotta agree for this to get the go-ahead. The you who splits off, though? Oh, there's some_ sweet _boons on the table if you're willing to go for 'em…_ ::

Buffy stood there and metaphorically chewed that over for a bit.

' _…What, where, when, who, how— Not that I'm agreeing here!_ ' she hastened to warn him.

:: _All right, I can answer that quick. You won't remember this if you say no, so no harm done._ ::

' _What—?_ '

:: _I said ease up, I'm answering! Right – where and when, is a few centuries off in a possible future. A future that's real, and real important – remember, everything is real somewhere – but one that's pretty unlikely to happen in this dimension's future. What, is the usual – bit of a wider scale than you're used to, but you'll be given lotsa time to get used to the idea. Who, is a group who've got into the whole 'make your own genetically engineered slaves and sell 'em off to the highest bidder' schtick, and found some pretty nasty ways to do it._ ::

Whistler waited, as she ran all that through her head.

' _Aaand… what, I'm just gonna do all that by myself?_ ' she asked sceptically.

:: _Course not!_ :: Whistler crowed into her skull, sounding like he'd grin if he could. :: _There'll be a team with you!_ ::

' _Team?_ '

:: _That's right! You can pick anywhere from six to twelve people to go with you. And, depending who you pick, you can all earn minor boons to help you out on the mission – or help out your other selves. And that's on top of the one you get for agreeing – which, just to be clear here, Slayer, that boon is the getting that say in who goes with ya._ ::

Buffy's head was beginning to swim. Boons? Other selves? This was rapidly spiraling out of control. And she couldn't even pace or rant!

She stopped, dredging up every meditation she'd sorta-learned to try to calm down and think without spinning in circles.

…She needed Willow. Or Giles, but she'd really prefer Willow.

Wait a minute…

' _…So…there'll be no difference between the two me's? Right?_ '

:: _That's right._ ::

' _And… The others. They'll get…_ twinned _too, right? Just like I'll be?_ '

:: _You got it._ ::

Oh well. At least there would be _one_ Buffy who could go on like this had never happened…

' _Fine. I'll do it._ '

:: _That's what I needed to hear. Here we go—_ ::

—ox-oxo-xo—

One very complicated and gut-churning moment later, Buffy stumbled forward and looked around. The world had gone grey and washed out, kinda like she remembered that eclipse doing at her high school Graduation ceremony before the darkness fell properly. Several metres off to her right, the Scooby Gang – including what must be the Buffy who was staying – was still frozen mid-conversation. Whistler was walking over.

"Right, now we can talk properly. That spell only lasts for so long before it starts to strain…" he said.

She interrupted, "Yeah, yeah. Willow, my first pick's Willow," pointing at her frozen friend. "Maybe she'll get all this goony…twin stuff."

Whistler grinned, raising a hand. "Good choice, toots." He snapped his fingers.

She almost lost her stomach again at the sight of what happened next.

Another Willow shimmered into existence – but not her Willow. Her Willow's hair wasn't black, her face wasn't veiny, and – and this was a very important point – her head hadn't been messily hacked off her body and the back of her head wasn't meant to be missing like someone had shot her between the eyes. Which by the hole in between the _really_ dead ringer's eyes, was exactly what had happened.

But only for a moment, as the severed head slid over to attach itself back to her neck, her skull reformed like a watermelon bursting in reverse and the bullet wound healed like it had never been there. Then as the black hair-colouring and veins faded out, the body levitated upright and the eyes suddenly snapped open.

Willow stumbled, much like Buffy had, and nearly fell over. Then she looked over at her best friend.

"Hey, Buffy! And oh wow, you look different!" She stopped at the look on Buffy's face. "What?"

Buffy looked down – to see a body younger and less thin than she'd been expecting. And a white dress she distinctly remembered dying in.

Unsurprisingly, the next thing both of them did was freak right the hell out.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Teaseriffic, no? Hope you enjoy what's coming…


	2. Borrowing Willow to Pay Buffy

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Short one here, done mainly for the gratuitous cliffhanger. But don't worry, the next one's already good to go…

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Two: Borrowing Willow to Pay Buffy**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

"Look, do you wanna know what happened or what?"

Whistler's yell brought the two of them down to earth. Buffy put him down and Willow stopped glowing.

"Right." Whistler straightened his clothing as he explained. "Twinned bodies don't just come out of _nowhere_ , ladies. The essence can stretch and even copy just fine – but adding energy-to-matter conversions, that throws everything outta whack! That's why the Ferula Gemina works like it does – to manage the split so at least the weaknesses are what the user wants them to be. It has to, to compensate for the energy loss."

Buffy looked over at Willow. The redhead was nodding thoughtfully.

"Now, you two have both been around the block enough to know; fixing up a dead body, bringing it back to life? Actually pretty easy, so long as you got all the bits. Tracking down the soul from the afterlife and shoving it back in, _that's_ where it gets nasty. But that's no problem here! Because we just split you off and move you into one of the healed but empty bodies. A quick memory-wipe of the brains, and we can just copy your memories onto the old grey matter."

"I think that makes sense," Willow commented, "but where are the bodies from? I mean, Buffy's _young_! And I'm… younger?"

"Multiverse theory, remember? Your new bodies are from an alternate realm where they died and the bodies mysteriously went missing." He smirked and air-quoted as he said 'mysteriously'. He lost the smirk when he saw their faces harden. "Hey, they died anyway! That Buffy died in the Master's cave, and that Willow died on Kingman's Bluff nearly two years ago! All I did was borrow the bodies for this!"

The women – younger women, now – relaxed a little. Buffy had to concede, she was all for not having a hole in her torso anymore.

"Oh, and just to be clear: nothing mystical carries over from the old owners – well, nothing except the Slayer spirit if it's there when they died, I can copy that. So no problems there either. Okay?"

"…Okay," Buffy replied. That sounded better than she'd been expecting.

Willow, on the other hand, was looking thoughtful again. Then she started smirking. "So, these bodies are from an alternate realm. That means, there are alternate realms you can get bodies from."

Whistler smiled. "You got it, Ginge…"

Willow scowled momentarily at the nickname, then went back to smirking. "So… can we _recruit_ from alternate dimensions? With the same conditions?"

The balance demon grinned widely. " _Yes_ , yes you can! And in fact, that just earned you your first mission boon!"

"Really, that's great!" Buffy turned to Willow, her sarcastic grin fading to deadpan. "Willow, what's a boon?"

"It's a favour – a minor miracle, from the Powers to you," Whistler answered instead. "Or a _major_ miracle, depending what how big the boon is. Actually, for this one I'll give you an example – because I just know at least one you'll wanna pick, you just won't be able to help yourself.

"Now, you _can_ ask for your vampy friends. And before you start worrying about sunlight: any of them you ask for, they get converted to human bodies and their souls bound till they move on like any other human. The boon you just got is: _now_ they'll get to keep the vampiric strength and healing, without being vampires." He grinned. "How's that for a boon?"

Buffy listened, her eyes getting wider and wider as a disbelieving grin spread across her own face.

—ox-oxo-xo—

Angel and Spike's additions were far less grisly than Willow's. Two small piles of dust billowed out and swirled into their old shapes, which condensed to their vampiric forms. The bodies flashed with a coruscade of dazzling colours, only to darken with a healthy flush of life as the light-show faded. As with Willow (and presumably Buffy), the last thing that happened before they opened their eyes was for the pair of ex-undead to be levitated so that they were standing upright.

They also stumbled, but recovered with vampiric grace.

Spike looked around curiously as Angel reflexively cowered from the sunlight before straightening and trying to pretend he had done no such thing. The smirking bleach-blond looked over at the taller brunet, tilting his head to indicate Buffy.

"See?" Spike told Angel. "I _told_ you she'd be fine. You an' your whinging over the translation – like something as tacky as that little bauble was gonna bring her down…"

Buffy, Willow and Angel stared at him with increasing bewilderment.

"Wot?"

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Ah, Cliffie, how I've missed you and your notes. Mwahahahahaaah…!  
…Ahem. Next!


	3. The Spare Nail…or is it Spike?

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Another shortish one. Gotta say, I kinda like doing short ones – easier to keep writing focus…

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Three: The Spare Nail…or is it Spike?**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

"What?" Whistler drawled, his audience of four turning to stare at him. "You got a boon for working out you can pick up recruits from alternate realms. Why are you all so surprised when you get one?"

Willow raised a hand. "So Spike is from…?"

Whistler sighed. "All right, kiddies. Pay attention to the viewscreens behind me…"

The 'viewscreens' that shimmered into existence looked more like vaguely rectangular portals, though the betraying sheen of a crystalline surface overlaying the windows either put the lie to that idea or proved it. Either way, they all heard Willow mutter, " _Really_ wanna learn how to do that!" as their attention was diverted to the deceptively similar sequences that played out.

Buffy, Willow and Angel found themselves riveted to the one on Whistler's right. Buffy and Angel blushed a little as they witnessed the little chat they'd had after Buffy had slayed Caleb. Then they straightened and watched with great interest as Spike appeared no more than halfway into their scheduled program starring Feelings and Mutual Embarrassment.

The Spike on 'screen' was severely shaken up, and verbally parried with Angel in a half-hearted, lackluster effort. Whatever The First had said to him back in the pyramid, it had clearly struck a very sensitive nerve. As was proven when that Spike uttered the words:

" _I reckon I'll be goin' back with you, Hairgel. I uh… I honestly don't think I can trust myself here."_

That Buffy tried to convince him to stay, even offering the amulet to use. But whatever nerve he had was not just struck but shot clean through. That Angel tried to stay, but Buffy abruptly got her back up, shook her head and ordered them both out of Sunnydale.

The 'screen's' perspective then shifted to under the Hellmouth, where Buffy and Faith were preparing to fight against the rapidly rising tide of Turok'Han vampires with the aid of the amassed Potentials. The obvious difference was the bundles of long wooden broomsticks and mop-handles that two of the Potentials were handing out to the others, presumably to shove individual Turok'Han off the cliff with the poles as they crested the lip. The slightly less obvious difference was the lack of Spike. It took a few moments for that Buffy to still for long enough for the three watchers to spot the last difference: that Buffy was wearing the amulet.

The moment the Potentials were activated became obvious when first one, then all of them broke their poles in half and started wielding them dual-handed against the horde. The moment the amulet activated was even more so. They watched on with some difficulty as the others retreated, a grim-faced Faith last. As the precipice and the surrounding Hellmouth crumbled, they witnessed the dying Slayer's last words as the screen began to fog over and fade:

" _Third time's the charm…" And then despite the agony, she grinned and chuckled. "And this time, you're all coming with me!"_

A green-looking Buffy still managed to comment, "Ooh, nice line…" as they shook themselves and turned to regard a stricken Spike. The screen on Whistler's left, which had depicted the timeline held in common by the other three, faded to non-existence behind him.

"Well bollocks," the glum blond lamented. "Some big dumb hero _I_ was."

Buffy, still shaken from witnessing her own death – ' _No, a_ version _of me's death!_ ' – protested, "Well, yeah… But maybe you still could be! Whistler chose you for this, for a reason!" She whirled to point at Whistler, not noticing Angel's eyes narrow for a moment. "Right?"

"That's right. And I gotta say – all hope's not lost on the home front either!" He grinned as the viewscreen to his right flickered back to life. "Here's a demonstration…"

They watched with increasing interest the scene playing out within a spacious highrise office. Angel, Wesley and three others who Willow identified as Fred Burkle, Charles Gunn and Lorne were talking over recently completed happenings of a legal nature. (Buffy and Willow were startled to learn that Angel had somehow taken over a law firm, and what sounded like an evil one no less!) As the former crew of Angel Investigations finished up, that Angel tore open a large envelope.

The quartet watched on as future events happened involving an amulet, and an incorporeal and extremely annoyed ex-vampire…

" _Spike!" Wesley said, surprised and intrigued._

" _Spike…" Angel ground out._

 _A long-haired, jarringly familiar blonde poked her head in from reception._

" _Blondie-Bear?" Harmony asked._

They blinked as the screen faded out again.

Spike shook himself. "…What the bloody buggering hell was that?"

The balance demon shrugged. "That was…not _quite_ their realm, but it does play out just like that. Turns out, third time wasn't _that_ lucky – the amulet's a soul-trap, and both their Spike and your Buffy are stuck in them as ghosts."

Spike _and_ Buffy gaped at him. "And how the hell does _that_ help us?" he growled.

Whistler grinned. "Do ya happen to remember the rewards on offer for helping us out with this?"

The blond and the blonde stopped, and thought for a moment.

"Huh. Yeah, good point."

"Innit just?"

"Besides," Willow added, "it's not like death ever really stopped you two…" She considered that. "Maybe you won't even need your boons for that! It's obvious the PTB aren't finished with you."

"Good idea," Whistler told them, "though, you might wanna consider spending a little bit of your boons making sure there aren't any complications. After all – it ain't just me and mine moving and shaking back there." He clapped his hands. "But that's for later! Pinocchio, you look like you got something on the mind. Care to share?"

"Yes. It was something Buffy said – you picked this Spike for a reason. As in, _you_ picked this Spike." He took a breath, having to smile for a moment as he enjoyed the long-missed sensation. "Buffy picked us, but why did you pick _this_ Spike… What are you looking for, when you make that kind of choice?"

Whistler grinned.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Not to mention the cliffs. And the clip-shows. Tee-hee! … _evil_. [Insert gratuitous jazz-hands here.]


	4. Coincidence? No, but still Punny!

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Not a short one this time, or at least not really. Sad to say, part of being fair to characters you don't like is trying to give them sound justifications for their embarrassments. Needless to say, for immortal characters Angel and souled-Spike annoy the hell out of me! (Buffy and Willow are still young, so they at least have an excuse.) But still, gotta be fair… because it's a bigger challenge. Why did you think I enjoy writing Xander so much?

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Four: Coincidence? No, but still Punny!**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

" _Great_ question, Angel! If only you were thinking this smart back when you did a deal with an evil law firm to _alter your reality_ … But ah well; win some, lose some."

Whistler waved down Angel's protests.

"Now see, I got two or three criteria. First one's so obvious, it's like… what's the phrase you kids like using? Oh yeah – 'duh': _most likely to agree_. That's for the mission, for the twinning, all of it. Next one, is just as straightforward, at least to me: _best for the mission_. I can see at least a kinda shape of how the mission's meant to go, and I pick for the best chances of that happening.

"But with all that, I gotta keep in mind the third one, which is a big one when it's youse guys picking them: _best team blend_. That means, picking the one who will cause the least headaches just being there. Now that's for the team – but especially that's for the one who picked them."

"Oh. Oh!" Willow exclaimed.

"Yep, Ginge's twigged." Whistler grinned and continued, talking over the redhead's growl. "Buffy asked for you two. But your Spike? A little too close, a little too sore… A little too _impatient_. You two in a big dramatic tug'o'war, with Buffy in the middle? That leads to headaches, and a bad mix that throws the team out."

Buffy winced. She hadn't really thought of that…

"So, this Spike? Needs some redemption before he rears up for another go – besides, _she_ ain't really the short-stack he's looking to impress. And you? Well, _you_ got the 'cookies' speech."

Willow looked strangely at Buffy. "Cookie speech?"

"Sounds scrumptious." Spike deadpanned before snorting with laughter – and then stopping. "Oh wait! I can eat now."

"Yes, but if you start now we'll be at this for hours," Whistler told the newly minted humans. "You won't get hungry for as long as this takes – none of you will. And speaking of gimme's: another little reward for you all. You can pick seven people now."

"Wait, what?" Buffy asked. "Didn't you say something about me picking _twelve_ people?"

Yeah, Whistler was acting much more like she expected now. Jerk.

"Close, but what I actually said was _from six_ to twelve. Well, really it was five, but I knew you'd pick Willow first so that was another gimme. The better you do at this, the more people you all get to pick instead of having me pick them." He cleared his throat. "Like I said: seven people, not including Buffy. You're currently at three. Now have at it!"

—ox-oxo-xo—

"So, I have an idea," Buffy said to the other three. They had stepped away a little from the balance demon, who was looking over a yellowed scroll and ferreting food scraps out of his mouth with his tongue. "How about we all make a choice of who we want to help us? I've already got one, so…"

Granted, it wasn't the choice that a scarred and still-aching corner of her heart really wanted to make. But this was for an actual _mission_ , so she just couldn't bring herself to justify asking for _her_. And in any case, this one was almost as good if her guess about who she could ask for was right.

Angel and Spike agreed and fell silent, debating their choices in privacy.

Willow, though, started worrying at her lip with her teeth. Much like she imagined Buffy to be, a large part of her was crying out for a lost love. But what about Kennedy? And, what about the mission? Either or both of them could be important, or at least pull their weight. But what if the mission needed someone different, someone unique and they didn't ask for them? But what if Whistler called for them anyway, and they needed their chance? Wait, what if they earned more people to pick? This was so confusing, it was like stressing over her tests, only worse!

In the end, she decided to put it off. There's be more chances later, right?

"I'll pick later, if that's all right Buffy?"

"You sure, Will?" Buffy looked shrewdly over at her best friend. It looked like she was having more trouble with her choice than Buffy had had with hers.

Willow took a deep breath, and managed to not whimper. "No, but I'll still pick later."

"Okay," she said with a shrug. Rushing wasn't going to make Willow change her mind. "Guys, have you made your picks?"

Angel nodded slightly, still looking unsure. Spike, on the other hand, was trying not to grin.

' _…Well, close enough I guess._ ' She looked up to find Whistler quirking an eyebrow at her under his ugly hat. "Okay, we got three more picks."

"All right, hit me with them!" he said.

"My pick… is Giles. But!" she said with a hand raised in a stopping gesture, "I want a Giles who never betrayed me." Buffy found herself shrinking a little. She hadn't really meant it to sound like that. "Well, apart from the Crucio-thingummy, but just that. One who never abandoned us… You know what I mean, Whistler, can you do it?"

Whistler scanned down the scroll. "Yep, I get ya. Next?"

Angel was looking down at Buffy with a surprised smile. That really was a good loophole. In fact, maybe he could try it too? Cordelia hadn't been a sure thing; it didn't feel quite right to pick her for the mission just for having visions.

He shook himself and addressed Whistler. "I want— we can pick people too, right?"

Whistler nodded. "If you can't, I'll tell you first. Your pick?"

"Wesley, I want a Wesley who never betrayed me over Connor."

"All good, I know just the one," the balance demon enthused, ignoring the other three's murmurs of "Connor, who's Connor?" and ticking off something on the scroll. "Next?"

"I'm not picking anybody yet," Willow told him. He nodded and turned to Spike.

Spike shrugged, not caring particularly about whoever this 'Connor' bloke was. 'Cause he had a right humdinger of an idea and wanted to try it out.

"I want Drusilla. Not just any Drusilla, though – I want her with a soul, I want her…at least _mostly_ sane, and I want her to still be a seer. Reckon you can do that, then?" he asked with a massive grin, making the others wonder if he was joking.

Whistler carelessly rolled up the scroll and stashed it away in his coat (which was not big enough to hold it, not that it didn't do it just fine anyway). He stared inscrutably at Spike, who never stopped grinning, for several seconds.

And then he started to applaud.

"Kudos to you, Mister Bleach – kudos indeed! Your challenge is accepted." He snapped his fingers, and added as three forms shimmered into existence, " _And_ your choice is one of my mandatories!"

The quartet heard him, but were too busy staring at the three arriving newcomers to respond to his aside (or to notice the three faint flashes high above them as their new companions manifested). For all her unexpected selection, Drusilla's appearance was both the most flashy and the least sickening – she appeared with the same dust-to-flesh-to-life procession as Angel and Spike had.

The ex-Watchers, though, were an entirely different matter.

Wesley's body was, not to put too fine a point on it, broken – bones snapped and piercing muscle and skin, limbs misshapen, deep furrows and burns and vampiric bite marks covering his blood-drenched form. Giles, though was rotting – and _demonic_. Until the demon burst from its vessel in a cloud of dust and sublimated away, and the rot began reversing even as Wesley's body made snapping noises and its wounds healed over – the process repairing their clothing as it continued.

"Even if I was Angelus…" Angel muttered.

Within five seconds, all three of them were standing and stumbling. Wesley tripped over his own feet and collapsed, Giles barely saved himself from a tumble, and Drusilla turned it into an impromptu pirouette with a surprisingly cheerful giggle.

"…this would be disturbing."

The mad seeress skipped gaily over to them. "Hello, new-Spike! How are you this bright sunny day-knot?"

Spike's grin, which had never quivered despite the surprisingly sickening process of embodiment, softened. "Not bad at all, Dru. And yourself? It's been a while on my end. Couple years, even."

"Oh, Spike's still with me. Can't let him run around by himself. He might grab onto a Slayer and catch the wrong spark – they try their long games, they do so try." She began leading her childe's analogue in a slow waltz. "But _your_ spark is right and true; I'll have my wish, and so might you."

"Um," Angel asked Whistler, "exactly how 'sane' is she?"

Drusilla lazily looked over Spike's shoulder. "Actually I'm just fucking with you. Hello to you too, knock-knock daddy." She stood aside as Spike fell over laughing and Whistler cracked up with him. Over by the two recovering Watchers, Buffy and Willow squawked at the sudden segue into crude speech and innuendo.

Angel blinked – then smirked. "I'll pay that one." He nodded thoughtfully. "You know, I was thinking that whole thing with Spike and Buffy was a little too strange to be coincidence…"

"Like _you_ can talk," Spike snarked. "Who was it again who got whisked across the country for a lookie-loo at the little blonde girl, hmm?"

They all stopped and looked at Whistler.

The balance demon shrugged. "Yeah, the soul curse has some side-effects most of you never quite twigged to."

"Really?" Rupert Giles was standing with an arm around Buffy (initially for support, now because neither particularly felt like removing it), wearing an intensely curious expression. Next to him, an incongruously hard-faced Wesley Wyndham-Price looked similarly inquisitive. "I suspect you aren't alluding to the amplifying depressive effect we have already tentatively identified. Is there some other nuance to the spell that has gone unnoticed?"

Buffy looked sidelong at him. "Translation?"

Rupert examined the present analogue of his heart's most-loved daughter. The glint of enjoyment in her gaze was unmistakeable. "The soul curse makes Angel even more miserable than he should be. But there's something else, isn't there Whistler?" He gave Buffy an arch look. "Better?"

Buffy stepped away with a satisfied smirk. "Much – though _I_ never heard about depresso-Angel being the curse's fault… Huh. Now what's wrong with Angel? Or the Angel back home, anyway?"

Whistler looked distinctly amused at Angel's expense as he answered. "Curses that dark – they're unnatural, and the nature of the world around them rebels against them. Even the curse itself rebels, if it keeps going long enough. _That's_ why there's all the cheesy loopholes in the fairy-tale curses you know and slay – to balance the scales, _and_ to have the curse weaken in ways and directions the caster can measure and monitor." He shrugged. "I never did get a straight answer from the higher-ups on whether they expected what happened. Personally though, I'd have thought the Kalderash would've had a better idea how their own damned curse worked."

"So…" Willow thought it over. "The curse wants to be broken. And the way to break it is to have a moment of perfect happiness…"

"Actually, it's a perfect moment of happiness," Whistler corrected. "Small but important difference – it reinforces the fairy-tale aspect. Otherwise just the right drug could do the trick."

"Huh, so _that's_ why…" Angel muttered.

"Okay, perfect moment of happiness, _perfect moment_ of— OH! Hah, Xander was wrong! It wasn't just sex with Buffy, it was the romantic _making love_ to Buffy that did it!" the witch crowed.

Wesley deadpanned. "…Are you certain _that_ is the aspect you should be fixated upon?"

"No! I'm still getting there," she snapped at him. "So, curse breaks by making love… curse increases chance of making love to break itself… Huh! And Xander's wrong again – but I guess he kinda still had a point." She nodded with forceful certainty – then blinked and looked at her curious audience.

"Oh! Sorry. Right… Xander and I had this pretty long-running debate over Angel and how he fell for Buffy, especially after we heard about Angel seeing her first in L.A.. Xander thought he had to be pretty shallow to fall for a fifteen-year-old girl. But I thought maybe he was going by eighteenth-century standards, I mean he hadn't been dating much since – and that was pretty much marrying-age for girls back then. But then Xander thought he should've picked it up anyway after a whole century with his soul. But then I thought, well, love at first sight – is that so unlikely? But then…"

She stopped and took a quick breath.

"We were _both_ right, weren't we? Right, Whistler?"

"Weeell," Whistler drawled, "to tell ya the truth, Liam _was_ pretty shallow in life. 'Drunken, womanising wastrel' would be a good description."

Everyone looked over at Angel.

"I want to argue, but…" He helplessly shrugged. "But it did cross my mind that Buffy was a Slayer. They aren't really known for _getting_ much older." Angel looked down, frowning as his mind's eye focused on a distant memory. "I didn't really see myself being with her that way, anyway – no matter what I might have felt. I just wanted to be there for her, help her as much as I could while she lived. It wasn't until…" Angel looked up. "But there was always that hope, in the back of my head. That it might happen anyway. That…"

"That you got your fairy-tale ending," Whistler finished for him. "Yep – the Hawaiian did some fine work that night, but I still wish the bosses had let me check on you after that. 'Cause then, that was when you lost the mission. It stopped being about deserving redemption, and started being about deserving the girl. Which would've been fine, except for the curse."

"So…" Willow asked, just to be sure after that torrent of exposition, "he _was_ being shallow, but it was because of the curse?"

"Close. He was depressed because of the curse – the original Kalderash clan crafted it that way. He was shallow because of the curse trying to break itself – that was a side-effect they did expect, but it turned out their descendants missed that bit."

"Hmm… I must say, that did sound somewhat damning on the Powers' role in events," Wesley mused.

"Since when is it ever that clear-cut, Head Boy? I'll cop to playing on his shallow side back at the start – I kinda _had_ to, the depression made it too much of a headache to get through to him otherwise. But the Hellmouth was always a place where chaos and the Infernals held sway – the only time I ever came into Sunnydale was to stop the world being sucked into Acathla's greedy gob, and the little influence I pulled was literally all I could do without the other side getting a free shot." Whistler sighed.

"Honestly? Things had to go a certain way. Whether the Powers planned it, or just couldn't stop it – six of one, a half-dozen on the other. No way to know, and it's over and done with. Besides…" He stopped and gestured eloquently at the gigantic pit that used to be Sunnydale. "No more Hellmouth. That means the options open up for you guys. Which leads to here and now – assuming we ever finish up!"

"…We _have_ drifted rather far afield, haven't we?" Rupert commented. "In fact, I believe we have not even been formally introduced as of yet."

The balance demon clapped once. "True! Now, you three caught the last show and tell for this lot, right?"

Rupert and Wesley nodded confirmation of that surmise. Drusilla, who had amused herself waving her finger in swirly circles three inches away from the frozen Xander's eye-patch in the meantime, called, "What truly _glorious_ destruction. If only glory weren't so overrated…"

"…Right." Whistler shook himself. Even he could be thrown sometimes when sufficiently nutty seers were involved. "Well – your turn!"

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** And yes, the Powers bug me too. But in this one… well, they're helping here. There's a reason they usually don't. Whether I can get to it without making it a big block of nonsequiturish exposition, will be the question.


	5. Interlude

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Something of an interlude for the triple-clump of newcomers, because I hate you. Starring **The One Where Giles Didn't Wuss Out** , followed by **The One Where Wesley Went Lone-Badass** , and finishing up with **The One Where Willow Bounced One Off His Forehead**. Laugh at the angst and be merry, because I still hate you.

…okay, not so much. For those of you who are feeling too slack to suddenly read 5,000 words, I left a short synopsis of where each of them came from at the bottom. But if you skip straight to it, know that I'll hate you.

 **A/N2** : ...Sorry, I got sidetracked by and the Infinite Loops. This happens. But hey, here's two chapters!

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter 5: Interlude  
(MiSTy show, but where's the Dinner?)**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

"Now, we'll run through the backgrounds one by one. But first!" Whistler announced. "You might've missed it before, but Spike nailed a mandatory pick – and not one of the obvious ones, either! For that, the number of people you can pick goes up to nine plus Buffy."

Several people drew breath to ask the obvious question, but most of them were distracted by the new viewscreen/portal flaring to life. The first being a depiction of his realm, Rupert might have still asked – but forewent the opportunity given that the others would need to hear the answer and it was likely an unwise proposition to annoy a being with this much power. (That remained the case not just despite, but because said being seemed already to be relatively benevolent in both disposition and intentions. And when all was said and done, for what reason should he rock the boat?)

Rupert watched this incongruously young-looking, hard-eyed Buffy Summers and the rest of their cohort as they watched the consequences of his decisions. Mainly, though, he watched Buffy. There was a moment of hesitation when their eyes had first met in this strange, halted realm, a wall behind her gaze that had jolted him despite half expecting it. A wall that she had consciously lowered for him, though there were others – even true daughters never let their fathers see too much.

She had asked for a Rupert Giles who hadn't abandoned her. She hadn't asked for one who was all-knowing. Planned from above or not, her self-destructive liaison with Spike was something which he should have _seen_ …

Meanwhile, the others (minus Drusilla, who was taking advantage of her ostensible insanity and being unnoticed to bare her life-filled chest to the elements and watch it bouncing up and down as she jumped in place – still in front of the frozen Xander for reasons we shall not speculate upon) watched the recent life story of the Rupert Giles their leader had requested.

They saw that, while he had not left after Glory or after Buffy's resurrection…

…

" _Was Buffy all why you stayed this long for, Giles? What about us? About Willow, and Xander and Tara, and-and_ me _? Are we all just, there to you?_ Huh _, Giles?"_

 _Rupert looked away. How could he explain the sheer unrelenting_ stress _, the way the frenetic years and the intermittent, heartwrenching deaths had chipped and worn away at his resolve until his every day was a cruel parody of a life worth living, that this latest tragedy had merely been the extra weight that broke the camel's back? How could he explain that to a grieving, needy young orphan girl who seem determined to prevent his absence by simply never letting go of him?_

 _He couldn't. And he shouldn't. But he still had to leave, or—_

" _Why do you get to leave? The others are staying, but we still need you! Please…" Dawn gave up on words and just sobbed into his shirt._

 _Rupert had frozen, his hand raised over Dawn's head as the wording crashed home. Perhaps it was unintentional, meaningless – not even a Freudian slip of the tongue. But even if it wasn't…_

'Why do _you_ get to leave?'

 _The others couldn't. Dawn especially couldn't. Or simply refused to. Spike refused. Even Anya refused. They had made their home here, or rather they had made their home with the people who were here._

 _It occurred to Rupert to wonder exactly where_ his _home was. Was there to be any rest? Any true healing, anywhere?_

 _His hand descended to stroke Dawn's hair. The earth was doomed, and so was he. No use escaping it_ _…_

…

…the emotional trauma of seeing the woman he had failed by allowing her death – again – continually took its toll on the increasingly haggard ex-Watcher. They witnessed his shamefaced apology for abandoning Buffy in her time of need, as he prepared to travel to England to prepare the way for Willow's sabbatical with the Devon coven following her D.U.M.I. car accident with Dawn… only for Buffy to forgive him, pointing to his obviously mounting stress as the best reason she needed to see him get away for a while. But things became hectic while he was gone, and the next time he'd returned had been with the powers of the coven itself imbued within him, to challenge his grieving charge.

(Willow could be heard in the changes of perspective, quietly explaining to Wesley that this was what mostly happened in their Sunnydale in the fall of '01 through spring '02. His whispered response indicated that it actually _was_ early spring '02 that he had just been twinned from, so a great deal of this was potentially valuable news to him.)

Summer '02 came to an end, as did that Willow's stay in England. But Rupert Giles could not go home yet – and he _had_ called it home, in one of his frequent conversations with Buffy and/or Willow as he hared around the globe investigating the Bringers and the scenes of devastation they left everywhere they went.

When he returned, it was with three Potentials. But this time, he had given plentiful warning. And as fall extended into winter and spring and their numbers grew, that Giles tried to help Buffy as much as he could, financially and organisation-wise, without appearing to take the reins away from her. That Giles, while he grew exceedingly exasperated at his Buffy's seemingly unwise faith in Spike, did not collude with Robin Wood to attempt the blond vampire's assassination – citing the fact that to do so would be to betray Buffy's trust as the deciding factor in his mind. And, in fact, that Giles had actually travelled with Spike to the monastery, and thus been absent for the group eviction-decision – which led to a right royal chewing out of the lot of them in tandem.

In the end (as Willow explained to the others), it had made little difference on the larger scale. He had been largely unable to curb Buffy's excesses and mood-swings, and virtually helpless in swaying her leadership decisions away from the mistakes of inexperience and tunnel-vision. (Needless to say, Willow phrased it in much less insulting fashion.) But it was clear that if nothing else, at least _this_ Rupert Giles had not abandoned his daughter in all but blood.

As Buffy and Willow could see, it had just as clearly cost him. The Giles they saw looked older, more tired and worn. But there was a warmth between them that was… well, _easier_ than with the Giles they were more familiar with.

The viewscreen faded to black. Willow mused, "You know, I kinda feel bad for our Giles. It's like, he knew he couldn't do anything."

"Still wish he didn't leave so he didn't have to see it." Buffy sighed. "…But yeah, I feel a little bad for him too."

"Still – pretty good deal anyway, right?" Willow indicated the newer Giles… in all senses, as this one's age looked to have been adjusted downward by several years. Given that the demon infesting the body had acted a lot like a certain possessing demon connected to the Ripper days, that was a fair bet.

"Yeah, I can definitely live with _that_ call," Buffy replied. "And maybe even _listen_ to this one sometimes!"

"Oi!" Spike called. "Pipe down, the next one's starting."

—ox-oxo-xo—

This one began in true montage fashion, with a procession of three-second 'clips' covering some of Angel Investigation's earlier years. More specifically, the tragic resurrection of Darla by Wolfram and Hart. Her contact with A.I.. Her interactions with Angel. His doomed effort to save her, followed by her death and his subsequent slaughtering through inaction of a bunch of lawyers. And so in the fullness of time came—

"Augh!" cried five disgusted voices. Angel groaned.

"Darla?" Buffy demanded.

"Shallow depression," Drusilla sang from her perch sitting on the statuesque (literally) Xander's shoulders, where she was enjoying a subtle quirk of the frozen world and had started a game of solitaire with her tarot cards. She tilted her head thoughtfully at the neat columns of cards arrayed in mid-air in front of Xander's face, debating her first move.

" _Darla_?" Buffy repeated.

"Yeah, pretty sure that one was Skip's fault," Whistler commented. "Merc weasel scored jurisdiction on that one…"

"Shhh!" Willow ended the argument before it could truly begin. After all, it was still running. Buffy turned back around just in time to see an obviously pregnant Darla.

"Augh!" cried four disgusted voices. Angel groaned again. Wesley looked sidelong at him with a certain bland amusement.

More 'clips' followed, still in their very brief forms. Of Daniel Holtz, of his puppetmaster Sahjhan, of Wolfram and Hart and more threats to the vampire child. Of Darla, becoming increasingly compassionate and caring, and then staking herself when she finally realised why. Of Connor.

"Huh, so that's Connor," Buffy mumbled, dazed by this point.

"Aww, he's so _cute_!" Willow squeaked.

"Shh, it's getting to the important bit," a red-faced Angel muttered.

And eventually, pretty quickly due to the montage-like delivery, it did. A sequence began, of that Wesley staring down with dawning horror at the finished translation of an ancient prophecy:

…

' **The Father Will Kill The Son** '

 _Wesley regarded his own scrawled words as if they were writhing millipedes, fell summoned as if a sign of apocalypse. His gorge rose as he fought down the panicky urge to make an immediate decision: to contact Fred, Gunn or Cordelia with his surmise – or to just go, kidnap Angel's son, and flee for whatever trace of safety he could secure for the ill-fortuned tot. And that assumed there was a choice – Fred and the others were just as likely to reject the very idea out of hand. Just as he was wrestling with the urge to, to place his trust in the vampire whom_ unbreakable prophecy _had decreed would fail in that trust—_

 _He stopped. Why did that sound familiar?_

 _Wesley's well-honed mind, ecstatic to have an opportunity to put aside his most recent dilemma, dived into the ordered stacks of his memory. It was something he had read, but something recent. Something from Sunnydale. Something recent_ and _from Sunnydale—_

 _That was it! A prophecy from the Pergamum Codex, referenced in then-Watcher Giles' journals to an event in the autumn of 1997. A purportedly_ unbreakable prophecy _– defeated by Angel and…young Harris. Yes, there was another reference some months later to an attempted revivification ritual that had not required Harris because he had thus been with Angel instead of near the Aurellian Master's point of demise. Wesley had wondered at the time what possible use Angel could have seen for such an ineffectual young man, forcefully ignoring his own hypocrisy. But he was wandering away from the point._

 _To be fair, the prophecy had not truly been_ broken _so much as manipulated to mean something entirely different, with entirely different and altogether happier results. But the fact remained: prophecies might not actually be as immutable as he was fearing._

 _And more to the point, those on the light side of the divide between good and evil were not the only ones who might take advantage of such a course. There certainly numbered among their enemies those with the cunning and, perhaps, the inside knowledge to attempt to enact such a self-fulfilling interpretation._

… _Or to provoke an ill-conceived response, in hopes of taking advantage. That the document was extremely old did_ not _, he suddenly realised, actually preclude the document being free from untoward tampering. Not when Wolfram and Hart was on the board. Not when reason was found for ancient prophecy itself to be referenced in the first place._

 _With that, his faith in Angel went a long way to being restored. While he remained convinced that Connor was currently in danger from his father, it would be far easier to prevail upon the others to search for the signs of tampering that might well be making this the case._

 _Yet even that would not make Connor safe. And he yet might be wrong._

 _Well, then. To his mind, Connor's safety was paramount – even the greatly valued links of comradeship he has forged of late with the people of Angel Investigations could not be placed in good conscience over the safety of an innocent babe. Angel Investigations was not going to be enough to ensure Connor's safety. That would not change were he to stay with them. But removing Connor, even from his ostensibly infanticidal father, would not make him any safer._

 _Perhaps… His face hardened in a way that his various compatriots and allies would have had a great deal of trouble recognising. …perhaps, it was time for a third path._

…

Their view lingered over that Wesley's shoulder, even as time began to elapse in fits and starts. A list was formed and grew quickly, tenuous schemes coming together to form a plan of action. It was not a nice plan, in fact it was an exceedingly bloody plan. But it was the plan of someone who had decided to _win_.

He'd examined the plan, nodded with satisfaction and resolve, and burned it on the spot. Then he'd assembled the prophecy, its translation and his attached notes questioning its authenticity, and left.

To those others of Angel Investigations, that Wesley handing those notes to Fred was the last they saw of him for a long time. But his disappearance was not in vain, and not to be wondered at for long.

The viewscreen's depiction descended into montage once more. Holtz, sniped from afar. His group, firebombed as they planned a retaliatory hit on Angel's crew. A grim Wesley, negotiating with groups of demons – and much to Buffy and Willow's audible surprise, Samantha Finn (only, not _Finn_ as she hadn't married Riley) and a group of ex-Initiative soldiers still stationed in Sunnydale. Attacks on other demonic lairs, by those same demons. And at the same time, Wolfram and Hart's L.A. branch, struck and heavily damaged by mortars and rockets fired by more ex-Initiative soldiers, headed by one Graham Miller. The same ex-soldiers, foiling an attempted liquidation of Angel's son by WRH wetworks squads while Wesley sniped anyone attempting to get close to Connor.

Angel grimaced as he saw the tear into Quor'Toth caused by Sahjhan in his tantrum, closed without anyone ever going through it – the feat performed from afar by a shadowy group of demons wearing golden masks.

For a short time, there was a comparative peace. Spike took the opportunity to congratulate Wesley on a fine bit of applied violence. Wesley just grit his teeth as the viewscreen portrayed his halting efforts to reconnect with his somewhat estranged colleagues at Angel Investigations…

Until the new WRH offices were rebuilt, and an ancient, shrivelled red demon (who bore more than a passing resemblance to one of the masked demons who closed the rift) sacrificed a captured Lindsey MacDonald—

The screen went grey.

Or rather, black and white. More 'clips' played, this time in a chilling silence. The new WRH office, with mostly new employees apart from Lilah Morgan and a few others. The ex-Initiative team, trekking through a jungle somewhere. Angel, vengefully cramming a pillow over a bedridden Wesley's face – a Wesley with a severely lacerated throat. The others keeping their distance, while Lilah made her own overtures. And a young man with the eyes of a killer, dressed in rough leathers, leaping out of a flickering portal in the lobby of Angel Investigations – with a twisted, prematurely aged follower of Holtz going ahead in secret, completely undetected.

The viewscreen faded to black. The watchers blinked as they tried to make sense of what they had witnessed.

"Um… now I'm lost," Buffy said.

"Little too art school for me," Willow agreed – carefully, what with the new Wesley's apparent hair-trigger temper.

"You're…" Angel gulped. "You're not from… from _our_ reality, are you?"

"Nope," Whistler called out. " _That_ was a reality-shift. That demon you saw – the same one you had Wolfram and Hart pay to shift Connor into obscurity, no less – that demon is an old enemy of Sahjhan's. An _old_ enemy, who wants _finality_ in his affairs. Now – _who's_ your son fated to kill again?"

Angel blinked. Then he started pacing to and fro, cursing in furious Gaelic.

"Your Wesley, he trusted the Nyazian Scrolls too much, panicked and made a bad call. This Wesley… this one, I twinned at the very last moment before the rewrite." Whistler clapped his hands. "Now, stop talking! There's one more…"

They turned to regard Drusilla, who was now hopping from head to frozen head, throwing in the odd mid-air flip or twirling ballerina pose. He grinned.

"And actually, this one's kinda entertaining!"

—ox-oxo-xo—

'This one', they saw as they collectively banished Drusilla's antics behind them, began with a desperate fight – a fight all of them had heard of, but only two there had witnessed in its entirety. Willow slipped a comforting, remorseful hand into a shivering Buffy's as the pivotal moment that would end the fight approached.

Only, it didn't quite happen as scripted…

…

 _Angelus gasped, his eyes flickering and glowing the least little bit. That Buffy froze in position, wondering what had just happened, the tiniest kernel of hope within beginning to unfurl…_

 _And then Angelus staggered away, giggling with mad triumph. "Heeheehee, nice try, Mousy!_ Nice try _!" he roared to the heavens. Meanwhile Buffy was staring in disbelief at the punch-drunk master vampire, that hope frozen in place – until she noticed the ominous movement beyond him._

 _Maybe, whatever Willow had tried – and right now she really hoped she_ wasn't _trying to restore his soul, and wouldn't try again – it was a_ good _thing it hadn't worked as planned. Because at least…_

 _She moved on instinct, without thought, ramming her blade through the fatally diverted Angelus and pushing him into the widening portal. Then, as the portal closed and the statue exploded, she collapsed into tears._

… _At least she hadn't had to send_ Angel _to hell._

…

 _Meanwhile, already loaded into Spike's Desoto and being driven out of Sunnydale at high speed, Drusilla wailed in what her distracted childe mistook for a tantrum at leaving her nutjob poof of a 'Daddy' behind._

 _The truth couldn't be more different, or more incomprehensible to him._

…

"…Ouch," Willow muttered.

Buffy loosened her grip. "Sorry," she muttered back.

"Oh! Right, ouch for that too…"

The sequence marched on past summer and into the fall – but, strangely, didn't seem to involve Drusilla at all. While the two friends paid close attention to spot the differences and Giles fell back slightly to give them a little privacy, the other three fell back more to verbally speculate from a distance.

Wesley mused, "I wonder how such a…chaotic error in what that young Willow was attempting to cast could have occurred. I've never been able to peruse the curse myself – you, Angel?"

"No, I've tried not to be too curious," he replied, with some careful warmth. While Wesley's story had not painted him in the most gentle or loyal of lights, at least he hadn't _stolen his son_. Or the other him's son. That put him one up on the Wesley he knew, for all he'd mostly learned to move on from that well-meaning betrayal. "The demon's still in here—" He stopped and smiled. "Well, it _was_. In any case, I didn't want it to get ideas to guard against any repeat castings. Whistler?"

The balance demon glanced over briefly from his own watch on the viewscreen, or at least the pair-and-a-spare watching it. He could hear the pair at the front whispering back and forth, commenting of the sequence. (So far, Faith had arrived, Kakistos had been dealt with, and that Buffy, Willow and Xander had just had a pretty big argument after Willow insisted she'd _felt_ the ensouling spell work. He could definitely hear Buffy gasp as that Xander confessed to his Slayer-friend to lying about Willow trying it again, citing his belief that Willow would fail so there was no point in distracting her from saving the world by saying anything at the time. Unsurprisingly, that Buffy – not distracted by caring for Angel and estranged from her other friends – got on a lot better with Faith early on.)

"Oh, that. Well, it definitely wasn't the Powers. It wasn't the Infernals either. It _might've_ been Chaos, or some weird twist of Destiny. Or maybe pure chance just sticky-beaked its way into this one." He gave them an eloquent shrug. "It _does_ happen, no matter how much everyone tries to stop it."

Anything that might have been added was cut off by a screech from Willow: " _I never did that_!"

("Oh yeah, getting to the funny bit…" Whistler muttered. Spike startled from his own scrutiny of the handstanding Drusilla – wearing some rather nice knickers, for once – and glanced quizzically at the balance demon before tuning in to whatever Red was upset over.)

"What are you looking at me like that for, Buffy? Giles? I didn't _do_ that!"

"Do what exactly?" Wesley enquired.

"A lust charm on Xander, apparently," Giles responded, still watching the portal – and in fact, not even remotely looking like he was accusing Willow of anything. Clearly the witch was feeling defensive. "If you may recall a certain poorly healed estrangement among the more long-standing group, back when you first arrived? An incident known as 'the Fluke' lay at the centre of it."

"Really, Buffy, I'm not kidding here – I didn't do it!" Willow insisted.

" _You_ didn't," Whistler interrupted. " _She_ did. Now everyone shut up!"

They all shut up, turned around and watched the viewscreen, which was showing that Willow having second thoughts about the lust charm after a conversation with Oz.

Well, most of them did. Drusilla's voice drifted over from far behind them, nearly over to the bus: "Well, I'm _certainly_ wearing nicer underwear than you are!"

Several snerks, snorts and snickers were hastily crammed down as they continued to watch.

"Ah yeah, here we go!" Whistler enthused. Only Spike noticed that he was actually looking at Willow when he said that – and not the on-screen one, either.

That Willow had just led Xander into a school chemistry lab, allegedly to use magic to 'fix' the inappropriate lusty feelings between them. What Xander didn't know wouldn't hurt her, was her obvious conclusion. What neither of them were counting on was being kidnapped – by Drusilla.

The screen went black and silent, for a heartbeat. And then voices began to sound…

…

" _Oh don't worry, red tree – I didn't bring my Spike with me." Xander recognised the voice and almost stiffened. '_ Ah great, _' he thought. '_ Drusilla. _That_ just takes the cake. _' At least the Soldier had weighed in for long enough to get its message through his pounding skull: being noticed was Bad, and stiffening up was Noticed. And so was breathing, so he tried to slow his breathing to sleep-like patterns even if he was on the verge of a fully deserved panic!_

 _The insane vampiress added in a conspiratorial tone, "My paramour has the strictest of instructions! Stay away from the Mouth – there are tiny Slayers here, dancing in the teeth." She sounded catty as she explained, "He could get attached. He attaches so easy, my Spike. But_ this _party is not for him. No spark for him, not till the_ right _spark comes…"_

 _To Xander, that pretty much boiled down to 'Spike's not here because the ducks are norton – this is my cowapult!'. He blamed it on Drusilla. And on the head. And therefore on Drusilla. Where was he? That_ was _a good question, wasn't it?_

" _Not like_ my _spark, little tree. Mine was for Daddy, but it bounced and I got splashed!"_

 _A muffled voice mumbled back at her, or possibly just tried to complain at the complete lack of sense. Wait, that was Willow's voice! She had Willow!_

" _Oh look! The poor bewitched kitten is awake." Crap. "But is there any sense to be had there? His little red witch isn't done riding, is she? No, not_ his _cathood!"_

" _What." He winced; that had just slipped out._

 _Drusilla leaned over Willow's bound form to meet his swollen eye as it opened. "Not even if she likes dogs now." She leaned back, her gaze more serious than her tone belied – and, he couldn't believe he was even thinking this, almost_ sane _. "The magic glitters and blinds, dazzles the senses, fogs the mind. Traps a burning spark in my insides." A tear fell on Willow's back. "Not for Daddy, no – for the little red tree has no Eye to see. Her pride, for my fall."_

 _That… actually made sense. Hey, maybe that 'be in me' stuff was contagious? But those eyes… they weren't mesmerising. They made him want to look away, like windows into a land of wailing and gnashing of teeth. …Yep, that clinched it – he didn't think like that. But at least the headache had eased._

 _Xander sighed. "She missed Angel and hit you, didn't she?"_

 _Sometimes a well-developed sense of empathy bit big ones. As much as a great deal of his self was frothing at the forebrain and screaming that_ Willow Was In Danger! _…honestly, he'd had a bad feeling about that spell from the beginning, even when it had looked like it might work. End justifying the means and all that, but there was just_ no way _that ripping a soul from its just and_ final _reward could end in anything but tears for all involved. Not even Angel deserved that, not after a century stranded on this side of the great beyond._

 _And Drusilla was a monster for a reason. A reason that involved being tortured and driven into insanity by Angelus before being turned. Willow being bent over her victim's knee ripe for her punishment almost seemed fitting at this point. Though if anything, he wondered…_

" _So why haven't you moved on anyway? One late sunrise, and…" He shrugged as best he could, noting peripherally that he was tied down. "Well, that's what_ I'd _do… well, unless Will— Oh."_

 _Drusilla nodded, the motion shedding another tear. "My Spike._ Mine _, and no other's." There was a flicker of movement, retreating back up the staircase. Both ignored it. "But this little red witch is not yours, kitten. Doggy claims her, gives her his leash." She suddenly raised her hand and brought it down twice._

Smack-smack! _Willow squealed into her gag. Xander noted a supremely ill-timed swelling in his pants._

" _Naughty witch. Your doggy collar doesn't fit a kitten's neck."_ Smack-smack _! Squeal! "Now stop squirming or I shall not punish you!"_

 _Xander's gaze dropped to Willow's face, which was reddening in a way that he'd come to recognise intimately over the last few weeks. His eyes bugged wide open at what Drusilla was hinting at._

 _A throat was cleared, off towards the stairway. Xander looked over as best he could, given the angle the bed was at to it._

 _Buffy, Faith, Oz and Cordelia all stood there, their faces a mix of conflicting emotions. Strangely, it was a scrupulously blank-faced Oz who spoke: "Are…we interrupting something?"_

 _"'Coz if this rows yer boat," Faith added, grinning like she'd won a prize, "we can come back later."_

 _Drusilla ignored them, looking directly at Cordelia. "Tread to the outside of the stairs – the middle is weak and your insides must stay inside."_

 _Cordelia took the invitation to retreat – sticking to the banister-side of the stairs, though she had no idea why she was actually listening to the crazy bitch._ Smack-smack _! Squeal!_

… _Okay, so she had_ one _idea._

…

Spike looked from the horribly blushing and aroused screen-Willow to the horribly blushing and mortified Willow beside them. "…You know, Whistler? I do begin to see what you're getting at here. In fact, I'm feelin' a hankering for some popcorn all of a sudden."

He and Whistler cracked up, the balance demon managing to straighten once and call out "Brava! _Brava_ Drusilla!" before actually falling over and rolling around on the road laughing.

Wesley glanced at Giles, noting that the screen had not only gone blank but sublimated. The show was clearly over. "So much for age and wisdom bringing maturity…" His lips quivered before he could still them.

"I personally blame their immortal natures – or at least the habits of such. Boredom may perchance be one of the more underestimated perils." A mischievous devil danced in the elder ex-Watcher's gaze. "I, on the other hand, _do_ recall Joyce hinting at some particularly embarrassing peccadilloes pertaining to Buffy's earlier years. She held that it was a responsibility of one's parents to hold such trifles over the children's heads…" He paused significantly. "Perhaps offering to trot them out for special occasions and what-have-you…"

"Young Willow clearly has become more confident in her demeanour over the years – as well as more powerful," Wesley said thoughtfully. "And she still seems most strident in her opinions, from my recent recollections. I must admit, I can certainly see the utility of a little harmless… _encouragement_ not to get carried away in any excesses of the ego that may crop up along the way. For the pair of them, in fact."

"We shall see. After all, we can but hope." Rupert paused once more. "Although that particular tactic may also be of benefit when applied to others among up… Balthazar."

"Certainly a idea worth considering… Police car."

"Oh please," Rupert smirked, looking over to where Buffy was trying to console her mortified friend while Angel looked on and almost succeeded in displaying absolute no shred of humour derived from the situation. "That embarrassed Buffy far more than it ever embarrassed me."

Wesley smiled, more grimly than the conversation perhaps warranted. "Never show a strength you have – never hide a weakness you do not."

Meanwhile, Buffy had hit on a winner. "Hey, it could be worse, Will – at least Xander didn't see it. Or Oz and Cordelia. Or Faith… Oh god, Faith…" Xander might eventually drop it – Faith _never_ would.

"I guess that's something…" Willow squeaked, her face going even redder.

And they were right, Xander didn't see it. If nothing else, the frozen Xander still had a tarot pack floating in front of his face. A deceptively innocent-looking Drusilla skipped over and back onto her perch, retrieving her top from where it had been draped over the frozen Faith's head on her way past.

* * *

 **Synopsis:** (including all characters thus far)

Realm One-A – identical for all intents and purposes to Realm One (canon). Buffy, Willow, Angel – as per end of 'Chosen'.  
Realm One-B – almost identical to Realm One-A, except that the First scared Spike into joining Angel in LA to get clear of Buffy, and Buffy wore the amulet and died closing the Hellmouth instead. Spike – as per end 'Chosen' AR.  
Realm One-C – almost identical to that of Realm One-A, except that Dawn puppy-dog-eyed/guilted Giles into staying in Sunnydale until he had to leave for Devon to arrange treatment for Willow following the car accident. In Season 7 he doesn't back Robin up in his plan to off Spike and goes with Spike to the monastery, thus being innocent of kicking Buffy out of her own house. For all that, the timeline runs in much similar fashion, except with Buffy and Giles being a lot closer. Giles – as per end 'Chosen' AR.

(All Realm One derivatives follow much the same plot, just with different shapes round the edges.)

Realm Two – deviates at a point sometime in BtVS Season 5 (to be announced). AtS Season 3 Wesley twigs to the likelihood that he's being played with the prophecy about Angel killing Connor, but nonetheless decides to leave Angel Investigations (without kidnapping Connor). Instead, in an effort to safeguard Connor from external threats while trusting AI to protect him from Angel, he starts hooking up with diverse allies (including an ex-Initiative unit through a team still stationed in Sunnydale – hence the earlier deviation) and starts killing or otherwise attempting to neutralise any threat to Connor he lays eyes on, up to and including blowing up the Wolfram and Hart LA branch office. This goes surprisingly well, until WRH finish building their new office and Cyvus Vail pulls a reality-rewrite so that it all never happened. Wesley – as per prior to rewrite, end of (AR) A3Ep19 'The Price'…I think. Y'know, the one where Connor comes back.

Realm Three – deviates near end of BtVS Season 2 'Becoming—Part 2'. Simply, at the point when Willow should have cursed Angelus with his soul, pure chance causes it to ricochet and hit Drusilla instead. Buffy stabs him while he's gloating about Willow's failure and pushes him in the portal, and Spike drives off with a wailing Drusilla pretty much as per canon. The real deviation goes into Season 3 – Angel(us) never returns, Xander confesses to Buffy about the Lie early, the Scoobies are thus estranged for a while, and Buffy quickly becomes closer to Faith. Meanwhile, Willow panics about losing Xander's closeness and bewitches him with a mild lust charm. (Note: the other Willows don't do this, just this Willow does.) Enter Drusilla, in Spike's role – engineering a highly enlightening reveal for the young Scoobies (and a highly embarrassing situation for Willow, which you should go read if you haven't already!).  
Beyond that, little is known; this realm is a _true_ divergence, edging fast into AU territory. Just for instance, there's no AtS as such, though Spike/Drusilla, Faith and/or Buffy, etc drop in on occasion to do/hunt stuff there. Spike spends almost no time in Sunnydale and none alone there, Drusilla riding close herd on him to avoid inappropriate attachments to tiny blonde Slayers. The only certain pairing would be Drusilla/Spike, the ensouling leaving her mostly sane but still quite nutty, a bit sadomasochistic, and plenty guilty enough to continue a kinky and sorta fulfilling relationship with her childe while hunting serial killers and child rapists – the situation nonetheless leaving her unhappy enough not to break the curse. She's thought to be holding out for something in the future… Buffy/Riley is another likely pairing (much less of a rebound-vibe), quite possibly with Faith to make it three (if she didn't flip and work for the Mayor). Willow with Oz and/or Tara (assuming _she_ didn't flip and work for the Mayor), Xander heading for LA with Cordelia – all these are possibilities…

…or they would be if I could be bothered taking it more seriously. Maybe _you'd_ like to try it?  
No, really – I'd love to see someone try this one on for size, especially if they could nail Drusilla.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Another one bites the dust. Future chapters won't have blocks like this one, which is why I labelled it as an interlude. Should hopefully help with keeping the chapter-lengths down.

And just remember: I hate you. Unless you liked this, in which case you're awesome and I shall sing hosannas to your awesomeness.

…Or just go to sleep. Fucking sleep-deprivation – great for ideas, horrible for writing them!


	6. The 4th Wall Is NOT Your Friend

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** …You do all know I was kidding about hating you. Right?

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Six: The 4th Wall Is NOT Your Friend**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Eventually Whistler did recover his composure and stand up, jamming his hat back on his head. He fished out a pocket watch from his jacket, flipped it open and winced. "Right, one pick at a time from now on."

Rupert cleared his throat. "Ahem, yes – before we forget or get caught up in gratuitous interludes once more: you mentioned 'mandatory picks'?"

"Yeah, that's right. And as an added reward for picking one of the less obvious ones, I'll even explain most of it… but not all of it. There's reasons.

"Remember, folks: this is a mission I'm recruiting you for – and the whole point of the mission is to _succeed_ at it. I can see the shape of this mission, but the lot of you are also capable of guessing what's needed too. So I can tell you, you're going to need your team to have a number of skills, to have any realistic chance of success. And that means, you're going to need to pick people who have those skills.

"On top of Buffy, there are five people who are actually required for the mission to have the best chances of success. Or at least, a bunch of required skills and roles which just happen to fit a really small number of people. Some are obvious – some, like Drusilla, really aren't."

Wesley scratched at his chin. "And if we may ask: how many of these 'mandatory picks' have we here?"

"And for what skills?" Rupert added.

"Willow is _the_ most powerful magic-user available – a couple others could've fit the bill, but that's who Buffy was most likely to pick. Drusilla is the most reliable seer available. Again, there were others you could've gone with…"

"Dammit," Angel cursed. He shouldn't have been distracted – not when he _could_ have picked Cordelia for mission-type reasons and been entirely justified to do it. Maybe that half-demon form from back before she ascended. …But, no. There was good reason for more than one witch – not so much for more than one seer.

 _Drusilla_ , though? Even Doyle or Lorne would have been better for his sense of remorse than Drusilla…

Directly behind him, Drusilla rolled her eyes. "Shallow depression!"

Angel jumped a foot in the air, whirling to face her. Trying once again to pretend that never happened despite the snickering behind him, he snapped, "Hey! The curse is gone…"

He trailed off. Spike, though, did not. "So start acting like it, you great poof!"

"Aaaand there are three mandatory picks left," Whistler continued. "That's part of why you don't just get to pick all of you – if you miss some, I'll make the shortfall with my picks. So – again, you have three picks left… unless you nail more mandatories or earn some other boon. Now get cracking!"

"One more question, if I may?" Whistler nodded to Rupert. "What _are_ the other necessary skills? And, if we may not know, then may we at least know why?"

"No, you may _not_ know," the balance demon told them. "And the reason why… is a test for your Slayer-girl. If she manages to pick them all – she passes the test, and there's a _major_ boon in it for her."

"Ooh! That sounds boony," Buffy enthused – again, with more than a trace of sarcasm.

Whistler just waved his arms in a shooing gesture. The assembly withdrew hurriedly.

—ox-oxo-xo—

Their host's reminder of an actual, serious purpose for all this had percolated through the seven people as they stood solemnly in a circle. Even Drusilla had drifted over, looking slightly more serious than usual.

Rupert began. "Well… It's not as if we can't pick others. We must simply endeavour to select the necessary personnel first."

They brightened a little.

"True," Wesley added. "Our eventual number will be thirteen. We are at seven, and can currently select three more. Why, were we to select three times correctly, that would be three we could select outside of that."

"Not to mention," Spike said, "just 'cause we need 'em, doesn't mean we don't _want_ 'em." He snorted. "Hell, no-one's kickin' up a fuss over _Willow_ being here…"

"Yeah, that's a good point," Buffy mused. "Not that I wouldn't like Mom or Dawn here with me, but Willow's good." She paused. "And I guess so's _this_ Drusilla. She seems…nice. Loopy but nice. And not a bloodthirsty psycho, so _that's_ all to the good."

Willow grunted, still more than a little red in the face. But then she brightened. "Hey, that's an idea. Let's all name people we want but probably shouldn't pick first! That way we can keep 'em in mind for later." The idea seemed to meet with silent approval from the majority. "I think… Tara or Kennedy. And Xander. And… Oz, I miss Oz. But I don't think we need a werewolf."

Angel agreed with that, adding, "Cordelia could've been the seer, but with Drusilla here I don't think we need another. Connor…maybe." Darla could have been another possibility, but he wasn't saying _that_. "Or Gunn. I'd like to have him at my back, but I can't see what mission-specific use he'd have. Well, apart from leading – but we've got Buffy for that. Same with Fred, it'd been nice to have— Wes?"

Wesley had his hand up to stop him, wearing an expression of furious thought. Then:

"Winifred Burkle!" he called out.

Another faint flash in the sky over them went unnoticed by anyone who was of a mind to comment. And nearby, another horrifying sight condensed into existence: a human, not so much burned as 'well-done' – as in the cooking definition – tied with greasy ropes to a long length of fire-charred wood that might have been a stake (the larger variety, used for disposing of witches) or a spit.

Until the wood disappeared, the fire damage repaired and clothing materialising to preserve the rail-thin woman's modesty. She awoke, stumbled and almost fell, if not for Drusilla catching her.

"Thanks," Fred said. Then she looked down at the short burlap sack that she wore as 'clothing'. "Um… I don't suppose…?" She looked beseechingly at Whistler.

"Yeah, sure." Whistler snapped his fingers again, replacing the burlap with a pencil skirt, blouse, lab coat, flats and a pair of glasses… Fred shifted in place, and sighed with relief. …oh, and also the applicable undergarments, can't forget those. "That's what you remember wearing. Oh – and before I forget?"

He looked over at Wesley, who was regarding him with a raised brow.

"Nice catch – now it's _two_ mandatory picks left."

Wesley nodded with satisfaction as Angel stared at him. "Our mission is in a distant future, on – and I paraphrase Whistler's telepathic speech to Buffy here – a 'wider scale' than we're used to. I have read a certain amount of science fiction, if not a great deal, and such a phrase in conjunction with a distant future indicates a great likelihood of interstellar travel and settlement being a staple element there. Such indicates high levels of science, levels which of all of us, Fred here is the person in the best position to comprehend."

Buffy blinked. "Translation?"

Wesley stopped, looking slightly sheepish. "I guessed that we needed a scientist. And I was right. Although…" the ex-Watcher looked Fred up and down. "I can't help but wonder if her circumstances might be a little different than those some of us recall…"

"Actually…" Whistler smirked as another viewscreen appeared. "Not so much!"

The portal's view followed a Fred dressed in the same outfit as the newly arrived Fred, as she stepped into a well-appointed science division, signing for an unexpected delivery. Superimposed words and numbers ghosted into being, television-style, near the bottom of the portal.

They formed a time and date, location and realm listing.

 **MARCH 3, 2004  
WOLFRAM & HART, L.A. BRANCH – RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT DIVISION  
REALM ONE-A  
(SOURCE: WINIFRED BURKLE)**

The unexpected delivery turned out to be a crude stone sarcophagus, with a strange insignia atop one end that looked like it was made from amethyst. She rattled off a number of tests to be ran on the sarcophagus, as the observers looked on with a great sense of foreboding. Nothing about this situation looked like it would end well.

As the nameless technicians left, that Fred looked curiously at the sigil. Seeming almost fixated, a hand began to stretch out towards it— and the picture froze.

"…And that's the point where I twinned her," Whistler finished as the viewscreen disintegrated. "The last viable point before she was irretrievably lost."

Fred swallowed, but didn't ask. Wesley, however, did have another question.

"So, the realm listing. What does it mean, to us at least?"

"And we're back to Multiverse theory," Whistler replied. He stopped, cleared his throat, and took a deep breath.

"Now – some of you may not know this, especially the girls," he said, pointing at Buffy and Willow, "but certain _specific_ minor boons were promised to some of you to get you to agree to this. His, for example," pointing this time at Rupert, "is for the PTB to arrange for the Council's money to be found real quick and easy for his twin and his people back home. English Junior's," and at Wesley, "as you might expect, involves an Orlon Window in his twin's near future."

"Orlon Window?" Willow asked. "And hey! Why didn't I get a boon like that?"

"'Cause you didn't ask for something specific – so for you and those like you, I'll be having a private chat after we're done with the picks so you can pick something. And an Orlon Window is a device used to see into the details of reality shifts so you can adjust them – _or_ , if you're nearby when one's broken, so you can regain the memory of what happened to you before it was written out of existence. Right."

Whistler continued, "Now, all that, all these favours like that – what's the common theme?"

"Interference," Spike quickly guessed, the revelation that outside forces might've had something to do with him falling for Buffy and going off to find a wish demon. "The Powers doing stuff they wouldn't bother with otherwise."

"Bingo! There's room for plans to change, especially when certain people earn the right to cash in favours – which is all boons really _are_ , after all. But… there's one reality where that don't work – the Powers there avoid giving out those kinds of favours unless they would've arranged for whatever the favour was to happen anyway. They _don't interfere_ , not directly like that. In fact, if it's at all possible for them to do it, they don't even give the boon out – they just go ahead with the arrangements and do their best to make sure whoever they were planning for is the one who jumps on the windfall. And the thing is, it's _gotta_ be that way, it's how Multiverse theory works."

"Ooh! I know this… or at least, Xander and I talked about this," Willow interjected. "Everything that can happen, happens somewhere – but for that to happen, everything _has_ to happen somewhere." She stopped, wrinkling her nose. "Well, everything within reason. 'Everything' is really, _really_ broad. Like 'Xander having an all-male orgy with Angel, Spike and Giles…and getting pregnant' – even more broad than _that_."

Angel, Spike and Giles all gagged and/or spluttered. Buffy stared at Willow, her jaw dropped mid-response.

Whistler grinned and raised one hand, ready to snap… then reconsidered, muttering something that sounded like 'maybe later'.

"Yeah, you can see why Xander doesn't like that idea," Willow added. "But… well, I did occasionally enjoy writing fan-fiction once, and the thing about fanfic is there's a canon universe you're basing everything off. Like, really, really loosely sometimes – but it still is."

Whistler took up the explanation once more. "For all any of us know, your lives really _are_ a TV show. In fact, Multiverse theory guarantees it – only, how the hell would _any_ of us know? Out beyond a certain point, there's just no use speculating, and even less use _caring_.

"But where I was going with this was: taking the Ginger Nerd's example, there has to be a 'canon' universe – a base realm, at the centre of everything. The case study, as our new resident scientist might put it."

"Or maybe 'control group'," Fred mused.

"Whatever. That realm… well, you saw a glimpse of it, with the amulet and Spike at Wolfram and Hart. That realm, we'll call Realm One.

"Realm One-A – that's pretty much exactly the same… right up to where you all start spending boons and the Powers start interfering. Realm One-B – that's Spike's, pretty much the same with one small difference. Others like that would be pretty much the same – only with _little_ differences on how you get there. Realms Two and Three – that's Wesley's and Drusilla's – are ones where one difference a little earlier sets off an avalanche to the point where everything looks different. That's one reason why I didn't go into Drusilla's realm so much – there's only so far you can follow before it just stops making any sense to the rest of you."

"Yeah… It would be really different," Buffy realised. "No Angel in L.A., no Spike in Sunnydale – I got _that_ much. Maybe even no Faith in jail…"

"I didn't like their plan," Drusilla primly asserted. "Their plan didn't have me in it. And it was boring anyway."

"And when you get a seer of Drusilla's calibre poking holes in everything…" Whistler shrugged. "Yeah, things go off the rails _real_ quick. Anyway, something like that happened with Realm Two, only with no seer to screw things up for shits and giggles – and with the Infernals making their own corrections.

"Basically, though – as far as _you're_ all concerned, it's just a shortcut. I added it just to point out that Fred here is from the same realm as Buffy, Willow and Angel – just, a little further on."

"But wait!" Willow exclaimed. "What about paradox?"

"Nothing to worry about there – comes down to it, we just keep Ratboy's crew out of the loop until that happens. After that, you're golden.

"Okay. Got all that? You got three people left to pick."

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** I apologise for nothing – because to apologise is to admit legal responsibility, and if _you've_ got the kind of traitorous dirty mind that fleshes out _that_ kind of image, that's _your_ fault.


	7. What's In A Haystack?

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** This is a good comfortable length. Wonder if I can stick to it?  
(Sorry for the absence. It may or may not involve SpaceBattles.)

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Seven: What's In A Haystack?**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

The group of eight formed back into its previous huddle.

"Well, that worked well," Wesley noted with a small smile for Fred. It faltered for a moment as he realised just how close Fred was standing to him, then softened as he continued. "Shall we continue the same tactic?"

"Um, no offence Wesley," Fred told him, "but you're _so_ lucky you were right."

"Right!" Buffy clapped her hands, determined to take charge despite her increasing exhaustion. It had not escaped her notice that there was a big reward being offered if she did her job right. "Names, and reasons for including them. Go!"

Wesley began. "I hesitate to begin with this of all names, but Xander Harris has been mentioned a lot as having some unusual areas of expertise – areas which nonetheless have turned out to be useful more than once here. Should we include him?"

Spike snorted. "Why the _hell_ would we bother with Droopy? 'S not like Red here hasn't been divvying up the goods so far as _that's_ concerned, and why else would we need him?" Heads nodded quietly in tacit agreement. (Drusilla ostentatiously looked away, but remained silent. Nobody noticed.)

"Faith?" Angel tabled. "We already have a Slayer, but another one might be good back-up…"

Buffy shrugged. "Or maybe Kendra…"

"Or Kennedy!" Willow added. She reflexively shrank at the look Spike gave her. "Why do none of you like her?"

Buffy cleared her throat as Angel and his people remained quiet. "So, a spare Slayer. I'd kinda prefer one with more experience than one big battle, but maybe. We'll keep it in mind, I guess. Oh, I know – Riley? He's all military…"

Wesley nodded. "That kind of background could certainly come in handy, though much of it may depend on the ordnance available where we're going. Let's keep to topic, though." He looked over at Angel. "Was I right in my surmise that Connor would somehow be available for selection?"

Angel hemmed and hawed. "Maybe… if we could find a stable one. But he'd be just another melee fighter with powers, and we've got plenty already – maybe later." He paused. "Same with Groo – sorry, the Gruselag. Same deal."

"Hmm," Giles thought aloud, "if we're going to run through all our acquaintances and allies, let us perhaps list off some departed ones. Tara, Jenny, Anya of course… We may as well include Jonathan in that."

"Not Andrew?" Buffy asked with a wry smirk.

"Hell _no_ ," Spike stressed. "And lemme guess – Tara the witch, Jonathan the…yeah, another witch. Anya…? You thinkin' we'll be dealing with demons here, Giles? 'Cause she's been round long enough she'd know a lot about 'em. That and boons – those sound suspiciouly like wishes."

"Perhaps we should ask?" Fred pointed out. "Maybe it's not demons, maybe it's cyborgs or aliens or something…"

"Good point," Rupert noted. "Jenny Calender, or Janna Kalderash, was a technopagan. Her skills in melding technological advances with scientific ones may well come into use – and I rather imagine in that field, it's him or some benevolent version of Warren Meers."

"Nuh-uh! No way I'm working with Warren!" Willow exclaimed. "Even if we got an innocent one – I'd be spending all my time either hiding from him or trying not to kill him all over again…"

Angel empathised. "I have to say, there are people I would really rather not work with either, even if they might be useful. Lindsey or Lilah…" He shuddered. Then he noticed the strange looks. "They're lawyers. Evil lawyers. And who knows? They _might_ come in handy where we're going. But still… _lawyers_."

Everyone shuddered.

"Actually…" Spike glanced carefully over at Buffy. "I might just have another strange one. _If_ you can all keep this secret."

The others agreed, intrigued. After all, his last 'strange' one had turned out to be an excellent if uncomfortable pick.

"Okay, Dawn. Her blood makes portals." Buffy bristled, but held off to see where this was going. "D'you suppose she might ever learn how to do that herself? Usin' portals to go wherever, right quick an' all? And…if she did, could that come in handy where we're going?"

"Actually," Fred interjected, "I'm saying it again. Let's just ask Whistler who's available. And about the demon thing."

They turned and wandered over to Whistler.

"Well?" Buffy said. "We know you heard all that. So – who's available, and are there demons?"

"No, there are no demons – or there were, but they were all wiped out long ago. What you'll be fighting… Let's just say, either they're abominations of science and you'll have no moral problems taking them out like they were demons – or they're the people who made them, and there might be other ways of dealing with them."

Buffy sighed with relief. That had been worrying her more than a bit since Fred brought it up.

"Now for the others. There's one flat-out _no_ , and one condition you might wanna know. The _no_ , is that version of Dawn Spike wanted. But not because she doesn't exist…"

"Okay, I'll bite. Why's that?" Spike asked.

"Dawn is available. Dawn can do those things, if she learns. But here's the problem: in _every_ realm of the Multiverse, there is a Key. And, it's the same Key – it has to be, otherwise how would it open everything at once if someone used it the wrong way? Buuut, in some places it's bound – like the Order of Dagon had it. In other places it's partially bound – like Dawn, who might learn to unbind it herself someday, depending on the realm. And in yet more places – places like _where you're going_ – the Key is unbound and serves as an underpinning element of the realm. In this case: interstellar travel is possible there, because the Key is unbound.

"Now, the problem with that comes in when unbound Keys from different realms come into contact with each other. That could be someone trying to use one like Glory did. That could _also_ be an unbound, portal-making Dawn in a foreign realm. Either way, the end result is the same: Multiversal apocalypse – basically, a slower version of the kind of paradox that freaks the hell out of scientists. See where I'm going with this?"

"Yep. So no Dawn," Spike summarised.

"Or at least, no Dawn who can do that. And no Dawn who learns to do that on the mission, either."

"So no Dawn," Buffy finished regretfully. "And, what else?"

"It's about picking Slayers – oh, and while I'm on this? You've just earned another minor mission boon – but we'll see who else you pick before we get to what it is. Now, Slayers. You'll notice I didn't make Willow or Fred Slayers?"

"Yeah…? I just figured you can't make Slayers out of nothing."

"Exactly. And Potential – that's not enough either, I still can't make the Slayer Spirit out of nothing. If you want Slayers, then they gotta be Slayers when I pick them. So apply that to Gingee's girltoy…"

Buffy paused. "Just how many Kennedy 'Slayers' are there?"

"From before the Slayer-Activation spell? That I can access, that you'd want in the team?" Whistler shrugged. "None. None of the others would agree, not without Willow for incentive. And remember – they gotta agree first."

Buffy nodded, and thought that over a little. "So… no experienced Slayer-Kennedy. Unless… wait. No. If they're from later, they've got to be kept out of the loop so nothing spoils the…" she took a guess at the right word, "…timeline, right?"

"Exactly – and your friend there? Not so great with keeping her mouth shut. So it's pretty much _that_ one over there," Whistler said with a glance at the frozen teenager, "or it's nothing."

She nodded again. "Right… Thanks."

—ox-oxo-xo—

They were back in the huddle in short order.

"So. No Dawn, no Anya…" Buffy paused, glancing at Willow. She sighed. "And no Kennedy, or at least probably not."

Willow hesitated, but nodded glumly.

"So… useful and new skills. So far we've got military, technopagan, and…I guess lawyer." She considered that for a while, crossing her arms and biting her lip. ' _So – Riley, Ms. Calender or one of those lawyer-types Angel hates._ ' She stole a glance at Angel. ' _So, Riley or Ms. Calender then._ '

Her gut was saying Riley. Then again, it could be another organ somewhere in that general vicinity. Then she remembered she had people for this. Especially one she'd selected just for this.

Well, two. But one was going to be wiser and more objective…probably.

"Giles? Riley or Ms. Calender? Thoughts?"

Rupert thought that over, mentally shaping out the general framework into which to consider the question with some semblance of objectivity. Once that was done, he verbally traced out the lines of logic for the benefit of his audience.

"Magic is useful for the mission. Science is prevalent, and we must assume that so is the military. But there are no demons – there were once, but not for a long time. Most likely for long enough that their existence has faded into legend. Hmm… Culturally, the long-term belief in the ascendancy of science would historically suggest that magic has _also_ faded into legend… so magic is likely to be far rarer. I wonder…" He straightened. "Oh dear. One moment."

He turned to Whistler, several of the others beginning to worry.

"Excuse me, but we just recalled something which we truly should have asked about earlier. What resources will we have available to us when we begin the mission? For that matter, what of details like identities, er residences, incomes, transport and such?"

"About _time_ , Rip." Whistler grinned. "There'll be a certain amount of forensic jiggery to insert that stuff into the timeline you're heading for, though some of it'll be pretty basic. Your I.D.'s will be as good as we can make them, and you'll have at least one fair-sized base to start from. You won't be sweating over that for a while – and that'll be a longer while now, because your base fund just tripled as our minor boon to you. Just another reward for using your head, people."

"Right. Thank you." He turned back to the huddle, accepting their thanks with quiet grace.

"Where was I…right. With a sufficient base to start from, I imagine we should be able to procure some form of local aid – both in connections and in the form of consultants such as the local equivalent of Angel Investigations." He thought for a little longer, checking if he was missing anything. "Right. Military expertise would likely be easier to procure there by far than magical expertise. My first choice would be Jenny Calender, though Riley remains a viable second choice."

There, done! His justifications were sound, and Jenny being the logical choice was merely a bonus.

"All right." The look in her eyes said she'd caught the subtext, but wasn't going to say anything. From her, that likely meant that she'd also caught enough of his reasoning to follow it. Buffy raised her voice. "One technopagan coming up. Ms. Calender, please!"

Whistler shrugged and snapped his fingers. "All right."

The dead Jenny Calender that appeared was in far better condition than many of the bodies had initially appeared: seemingly intact other than the obviously broken neck. The neck snapped back into place with a grisly crackle and the body levitated upright before she stumbled into Rupert's arms. This time Spike did notice Drusilla looking at the sky, but couldn't see anything up there so didn't mention it.

This new arrival, though, had something on her mind. "Tell me I stay dead?" she beseeched the balance demon.

Whistler looked off into the distance, head tilted. "Done."

"Sorry?" Rupert wondered.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Yeah, this kinda thing was always gonna come up. That doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna learn, mind you…


	8. That Must Sting

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** There is a reference to something that sounds like it might have come from one of my Divergence series fics. It didn't.

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Eight: That Must Sting**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Jenny Calender shook her head. "Not important. As long as it's done."

Angel, though, saw the way she'd looked over at the rest of the group only fleetingly, and him not at all. He sighed, not liking the conclusion he was drawing. "It was Angelus again, wasn't it?"

Jenny straightened, braced herself and turned to face the analogue of her killer. "Yes. I tried to convince the others not to bring that damned monk in, but the need was simply considered too great."

Angel blinked… and then groaned. "The Beast?"

"If that was the thing that was plaguing Cordelia, then yes."

"So you worked with me, then?" Angel frowned thoughtfully. "You came to L.A. with me? After Buffy and the others finished high school?"

"Angel Investigations, yes. You, me, Cordelia, Doyle for a while, then Gunn, Fred… Connor? How'd he turn out?"

He winced. "Mad. Pretty close to _Drusilla_ -mad, near the end. Turns out, Cordelia ascending? That was a play by an exiled Power, to convert the whole world. Cordy's still in a coma." Angel sighed. "It wasn't _me_ , but… If I'm right, I killed Lilah Morgan like that – only with more biting. So… sorry, if it means anything."

"It doesn't. It wasn't _you_ … and, you're human anyway from what I gathered. No more curse. I guess you're Shanshu'd, no matter what the Clan says."

"Yeah. …No Wes?"

"Wesley? No, he's Faith's Watcher. They've popped up a time or two, but they tour the world a lot." She grinned at him, good cheer restored. "She's got some good stories…"

"Okay – what the _hell_?"

Jenny smirked at her. "Hello, Buffy. It's been a while since I saw your analogue."

"And…" Angel sighed again. "Yeah, I've had an… _interesting_ year."

"Exiled Power, Connor, Cordelia in a coma: understatement much? And that's on top of you losing your soul again. Why did we never hear this?"

This time he winced. "A lot of it you did, actually. Or Willow and Faith did. But, the reality-rewrite probably wiped out a lot of it. And the thing with Cordelia and the ex-Power didn't happen until after they left. And…" Angel shrugged helplessly. "Apocalypse season. We both had our own going. And you…kinda ordered me back to L.A. before we could really catch up."

"Fine," Buffy grumpily relented. "But we'll be talking later!"

"I imagine with such a diverse array of pasts we'll _all_ be talking," Rupert finally interjected. "Hello, Jenny. May I assume you performed the soul curse in early '98 before Angelus could fell you?"

"That'd be correct, English. May I assume yours didn't?"

Rupert nodded. "Mine, theirs, same with everyone else here." He looked over at Whistler. "Is this going to require another viewing?"

Whistler hummed. "She's already gone over most of it. Anyone here feel like it?"

The assembly looked at each other.

"Nah," Spike eventually told him. "Let's get on with this."

" _Thank_ you! Now, you're down to two picks. Next!"

"You meant that wasn't a mandatory pick?" Willow exclaimed.

"Nope," he told them. "She'll be useful, but you could've done it without her."

"Damn," Buffy muttered. "Okay. Riley, then?" Whistler raised his hand. "Only… yeah, why not? Can you manage a Riley who kept the super-vitamin power-up and won't die?"

Whistler paused, and pulled out the scroll he'd examined before. He scrolled down it, coming to a certain point. "…I got one who won't die for about ten years. The mission's nowhere near that long – will that do you?"

"Can we fix that? The whole 'ten years' thing?"

He shrugged. " _He_ could. He'd have to use a boon for it, but he could. So?"

She threw her arms out. Hell if she had any better ideas! Buffy's gut still liked the thought, he was a solid kinda guy and it would be great to have him at her back, but her head was telling her Giles was right and he wasn't any more vital than Ms. Calender turned out to be. "Okay. Have at it."

The fingers snapped, and a pile of body parts appeared. Watching them put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle was not something she could ever unsee – though at least she knew what a spleen actually _looked_ like now.

She did, distantly, wonder what so many would-be Big Bads had against the poor little things. They looked so harmless yet icky!

Wow, she really was tired. Or maybe just trying a touch of Sunnydale Syndrome on herself… Nah, just tired.

"Hey, Buff. You're looking kinda wiped." The newest arrival paused, looking her up and down. "And also kinda underage. I like the dress, though."

"Hey, Riley." She gave him a hug, since he was standing right there. "Yeah, my day's been kinda busy." Buffy jerked a thumb over at the massive crater that was once Sunnydale. "We, like, just did that. And then this."

Riley whistled. "That's a nice day's work. I was just fighting Glory when I got tapped. Which reminds me – ah, Whistler, right?"

"That's right. And no problem, you just got blown up a bit. You'll be up and back on your feet by the time Wesley gives you the call."

"What?" said Riley, Buffy and Wesley.

Whistler rolled his eyes as another viewscreen appeared.

…

" _We could definitely use you," the Colonel told him._

 _Riley chewed over that, for a little while. The thing that was bugging him, though, was…_

" _Seriously? Sorry – all due respect, sir. But are we really going to leave Buffy Summers and her group to do the job here alone? Not even keep a squad here?"_

 _The Colonel gave him the eye, but there was a certain satisfaction buried deep there. Probably because he'd just used the word 'we'. And he'd meant to. The ship might have sailed as far as he and Buffy were concerned – his issues on top of her issues were hell on relationship bliss, and to be honest he'd always understood himself to be the rebound guy – but his point stood._

" _Sir, we will be working in the black wherever we go. It's the way of the job, sir. So, why_ not _leave a squad here on the lowdown? Hey, let's rotate 'em in for training! Giles is an acknowledged expert in the field, and he's had years under his belt to prove it. With Rosenberg helping, we can form databases like_ they've _never really bothered with, and do it a helluva lot quicker than the Initiative ever did. Even_ Harris _can help out with ideas like special kit and loads – his geeky little mind has enough comics in there, the kid's picked up some nice ideas_ I _wanna see if they work. And like you said, sir, we can do it_ right _. Clean. Efficient." He shrugged. "We got the resource. It wouldn't help the Initiative like they wanted, but that's mostly because they're doing what_ we _do. So why ignore it, sir?"_

 _The Colonel stared at him for a long time. Then he huffed and stepped away. "Wait right there, soldier – I'm bouncing that up the line. I want an answer to that one my own self."_

…

Presumably that squad must have been approved, because the viewscreen did not depict Riley leaving. Instead a number of soldiers – including a couple of faces that were vaguely familiar – remained. They didn't immediately begin operations, however, or at least there were no immediate patrols for the viewers to see. Instead, Riley was seen with a succession of Scoobies.

At first, they were shaking their heads – Giles, Buffy, Willow and Tara. Xander wasn't seen to make a decision, but the next sequence was of Anya chatting away animatedly while three green(-faced) recruits took notes and the one after that was of Anya accepting a roll of cash from that Riley while Xander stood at her side grinning.

That one got a number of chuckles, several of them realising exactly what had just happened. The laughter got louder after the next two sequences (Wesley nodding while talking to Riley over a phone line, and Xander talking to Spike) – because several more recruits were lined up to spar with Spike, who proceeded to whip soldier after soldier into shape… as in literally, with a wet towel. The next one was of Spike accepting another roll of cash from that Riley while Xander and Anya stood off to the side grinning – then bursting out laughing when Spike whipped him with the towel as he turned to leave.

Riley scratched his neck and blushed at that one, as Spike mumbled, "Nuts – why didn't I think of that?"

Joyce Summers' funeral rolled around as the laughter faded, only to be followed with Riley staring grimly at a sheaf of medical papers. The last sequence was of Glory, picking herself up and losing her temper as she lamented over her hair after an RPG round hit her in the head – before storming over towards an already horribly injured Riley… who was scrambling to load another grenade.

As the viewscreen faded, Whistler commented, "Okay, for those of you who missed it, Cornfed here is from Realm Two – same as Wesley. Some of you might've recognised a few of the squad members as the ones who hit Wolfram and Hart, just for instance." He looked at Riley. "Hence the being blown-up a little – that leaves you our of the way and unable to interfere with Wes's past."

Whistler looked around. "All right. As it stands right now, you've got one pick left. Try not to waste it."

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Any excuse, I tell ya – any excuse…


	9. The Art of the Self-Evident

**Disclaimer:** Refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Oh look, it's another chapter!  
(This long absence, I'm most _definitely_ blaming on SpaceBattles.)

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Nine: The Art of the Self-Evident**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Buffy wandered back over to the forming huddle, feeling like she should be yawning as the others talked quietly amongst themselves. She was pretty sure by now the tiredness wasn't physical – there wasn't anything wrong with her body. No, it was mental, and emotional. There had been a second wind after the shiny new thing presented itself, but that was petering out now.

They had one choice left, or Whistler would pick the others. And she didn't want that to happen, because… well, mainly, because it was Whistler and they had history. That and could she help it if she was competitive? She wondered how big one of those 'major boons' was, too – if making Angel, Spike and Drusilla human _and_ letting them keep the strength and healing all counted as a minor boon, then a major boon had to be something special.

Assuming she managed to somehow pull out a guess, because she had no idea who Whistler wanted her to pick!

When she got to the others, though, there was a new development.

Namely, a blond ex-vampire quietly cursing and verbally kicking himself.

Eventually Spike stopped and took a few deep breaths. Like Angel before him, it seemed he actually had to breathe in order to curse. Poor Angel and Spike. Maybe if they practiced they could get as good as Willow. Buffy tried not to snicker at the image of either of them trying to emulate Willow.

"Right," Spike told the others. "We got an ace up our sleeve. Hell, I _put_ that ace up our sleeve, but we didn't even think to use it." He paused significantly. "We… have a _seer_."

They all turned to Drusilla, who was looking at her nails with interest.

"We have a seer, who if I'm guessing right, has been taking a look up in the sky every time someone is brought here. A seer who I know for a _fact_ sees things, _all the time_. So let's ask her what she's seeing right now, shall we?" He stepped over to the seer in question, who was testing the bendiness of her nails on the heel of her hands. "Dru?"

"Yes, new-Spike?"

"Who do _you_ think we should pick?" he wheedled.

"Faith," she replied matter-of-factly.

He was taken aback, and he was not the only one. "Faith?"

Drusilla nodded, pointing one deadly-looking finger at Jenny. "Hers."

Buffy wondered what was so special about Faith, that Drusilla wanted her to pick her. Then she wondered what was so special about _that_ Faith.

What did she know about that Faith?

What had Ms. Calender said? Wesley was Faith's Watcher. They toured the world. Ms. Calender was… her original had died only a few months ago, if she was right about the timing. So Wesley had been Faith's Watcher for years.

That would have been tricky if Faith was in jail. So…

"Ms. Calender?"

"Call me Jenny, please."

"Uh, Jenny – did Faith kill the Deputy Mayor, back where you came from?"

"In an accident, yes."

"As in, _staked_ him by accident. Right?" Ms. Calender – Jenny, she'd have to try getting used to that – nodded. So that much was the same… The trick would be asking something she'd know. "Did Wesley call in the wetworks squad?"

Jenny let out a quiet 'ah' of understanding. "No, he held off. For my own curiosity, though – I saw the part from Drusilla's realm where that Buffy pushed Angelus into the portal, shortly after that Willow's soul curse failed. I'm guessing you had to push _Angel_ through?"

Buffy nodded curtly. She had not appreciated the earlier reminder.

"And, he came back at some point – late 'ninety-eight, if I were to guess? He would have had to at _some_ point, and Angel mentioned leaving for L.A. after your graduation." Buffy nodded again. Jenny 'hmm'd at that. "Last question – where was Faith living when she killed Alan Finch?"

"A motel room. Why?"

"That _would_ explain it. She might not have been willing to talk to _you_ about it – but Faith was living with you and had for months, since shortly after you first found out where she was staying. Joyce had much more success in getting her to open up."

Buffy sunk her face into her hands with a groan. "She didn't betray you all and work for the Mayor, did she?"

Jenny was taken aback. "No, why would… Oh. Never mind."

"Yeah," she muttered. "Yet more high-school drama that bit us all in the ass later."

Angel being re-ensouled early meant no Acathla, or at least no _him_ trying to wake Acathla. So no stay in hell. So no him being missing. So no Buffy suddenly being distracted by a big feral Angel-shaped secret. So her mom having months to work on her instead of Faith staying in that grungy motel room for months.

Buffy sighed. At least she was reassured about _this_ Faith being easier to get along with than the one she knew. Willow didn't look very happy, but…well, Drusilla was a seer. And she seemed pretty damn sure about it. And no-one had any better option.

"Whistler? The Faith from Jenny Calender's realm." She shrugged. "Or I suppose any Faith who didn't betray us all."

"One Faith coming up! Oh, and yes that _was_ a mandatory."

…Faith's corpse looked kinda like Riley's, only there was far less of it and bits of whatever was left were still smoking. Had a _bomb_ hit her or something? With all those missing bits, her reassembly was actually more like the ex-vampires than Riley's.

She didn't stumble at all. No, she strode over to Jenny. "Long time no see, Lady Jay. How ya doing – you know, apart from unexpectedly alive and all?"

Jenny replied with a smile, "Looking younger every day. You?"

"Heh, know the feeling! Wassup, B?"

Buffy blinked at her. Then she dug her thumb in the direction of the big ol' crater.

"You too, huh? Though I ain't seein' Wes over in the statuary." She stopped, looking Buffy over again. "Damn, am I older than you now?"

She blinked again. "I don't know. Whistler?"

Whistler looked up from the scroll. "Body-wise, yeah – just a year or so."

Faith grinned. "I'm _liking_ this trend." Then she turned that grin on Willow, and something that had been mentioned in passing but never explicitly stated suddenly smacked Buffy upside the head. She sunk her head into her hands again.

"So, Red – I caught the show. Ya think you and the crazy ex-vamp chick can do a repeat performance?"

Buffy moaned with muffled exasperation as Willow started spluttering. "Sorry, Will…" Why had she ever agreed to lead these people again?

—ox-oxo-xo—

The fallout could have been worse. Fortunately, Buffy had picked Faith – which meant the thing about 'least headaches' came into it. The younger (or technically older, if they went purely by current body-age) Slayer quickly apologised, or at least said something close. To follow Faith's line of reasoning, she was practically _obligated_ to say something once. She wouldn't be Faith if she didn't. But now she was done, or at least she was done until after they'd all got where they were going and got done sleeping for that week the local Faith had recommended so darn long ago.

A Faith who knew when to ease up, and then actually did it? Yay.

No, really. She was just too drained (though not literally) to put her back into it.

Whistler was looking at the scroll again, this time scrawling on it at various points. Faith called over, "Hey Whis! You ready to go?"

He looked up. "Could use a few minutes. I've got some stuff to finish up here."

"You sure?" Faith suddenly grinned again. "Hey, think you can throw some shit up on the living TV thing?"

Whistler stopped. "What do you got in mind?"

"How's about…" She smirked at Willow for a moment, but muttered, "Nah, too easy… How about one of them montage clips, with a bunch of the shit I killed on tour with Wes? Maybe with a kickin' soundtrack?"

He blinked. Blinked again. Then snorted. "Sure – but I pick the tune."

What followed was some of the most surreal minutes of Buffy's life. Not so much the Slaying, though that was all violent and messy – someone could probably do the same thing with _her_ life, and have it going on for much longer than a few minutes. No, the surreal part was the tune, which she actually found herself trying to sing along to in bits.

" _Sunshine, lollipops and, rainbows, nerner-ner, ner something somethi—_ Eww, I _hate_ fighting those things…"

Oh, and Drusilla, gliding around and waving goodbye to random points in the sky, blowing kisses and saying things like 'better luck next time'.

Whistler rolled up the scroll and put it away as the 'clip show' finished with that Faith offering her Wesley a chaos demon's head on a stick with two other demon heads haphazardly shoved on the antlers.

 _("Souvenir, Wes?"_

" _Hmm! I_ do _feel a sudden urge to own a fireplace…")_

"Right, sorry about that – we still had a bunch of possible volunteers. I just sent most of them packing." Ten people turned to stare at Drusilla, who shrugged. "Now we're coming up on the home stretch. So, let's get the obvious question out of the way."

"So," Giles obliged, "Why Faith? Was there some need for more than one Slayer?"

"Not so much an extra. What you need, and what you just got, is _The_ Slayer."

Buffy would have said something. But there was something about the way he'd said 'the Slayer'…

"Wait, I know this one," Faith called out. "Wes told me, after B's funeral. The Slayer is – well, a bunch of stuff. Strength and skill, vampires and demons, yadda-yadda… One dies, the next is born. There wasn't another one after Buffy died. I haven't died yet – so when I do, the next one fires up. That makes me The Slayer. If someone does CPR or something, and gets me goin' again, then I'm A Slayer like Buffy."

"Ah!" Giles said. "I do believe I might know where you're going with this! Whistler, you said there _were_ demons where we are going. Were there Slayers? Are there still Slayers, for that matter?"

"Yep, that's right. They stopped coming when the demons did, but there were. Keep going."

Giles nodded. "And if there were Slayers, there was a Slayer _Scythe_?"

"Bingo! The thing is, with that spell Gingee did to activate all the Slayers? You get a lot more control over who you want to activate when you have The Slayer holding it. Much less power wasted, too."

Whistler suddenly scowled at Willow.

"Not like _you_ would've cared. _You_ were so blissed out you just went ahead and activated _every last one of them_."

Willow looked at him like he was mad. "Well of course I did! I didn't know how much power it would take to make it happen, and what do you mean every last one of them? We gave them a _choice_!"

"Really? So, you're an ordinary girl, going about your business, and you suddenly feel a massive power-rush. Like you're strong, like you're in control. And there's a corner of your soul that knows, and is now screaming at you: this is what you're _made_ for! That's what Potentials _are_ , kiddo. Souls who are made to take up the fight – if they're asked." He snorted in disgust.

"Like any of them said no."

Buffy paled and almost staggered as the implication of that statement hit her.

Being the Slayer ('a' or 'the', that only seemed to actually matter after you were dead) was something that she'd come to accept, mostly. There were _some_ benefits – friends who were more real than any she'd ever had as a popular girl (even if it turned out they _did_ have their own lines she couldn't ask them to cross), a purpose that left her feeling like she at least did something meaningful with what life she had (again, better than she might've ended up as after Hemery, though she _thought_ she was savvy enough not to end up as a trophy wife to some rich jerk), and if nothing else she could take solace in the knowledge that if she was feeling _really_ cranky she could just go find some demon to take it out on. But honestly: if she'd known what she was in for over the next seven years, and was given the choice?

Not just no, but _hell_ no! There were a whole bunch more lined up after her? Let one of _them_ do it!

Every Potential was hard-wired to accept the choice, if it was ever offered to her. As Faith might've put it: that was like every guy being hard-wired to want sex. Only, guys could resist it until it went away if they really wanted to. Potentials couldn't say no, not really – not when a big ol' part of them was saying yes please, more, more, oh god YES! Not when that part of them had the casting vote like Whistler was saying.

So, she'd _technically_ been asked. But that was like being asked for sex while she was asleep, and the guy taking her lack of a clear and vehement 'no' as consent. ' _And it's time to stop thinking like Faith now,_ ' a distant, nearly unheard part stated in her own brain's attempt to distract her from the inner monster stomping all over her satisfaction at a job well done.

Just how many girls had they turned into Slayers – just like she was, only a bunch of them all at once?

How many innocent, peaceful girls had she doomed to her life? With just as much warning as she got?

She startled as a hand dropped onto her shoulder, looking up to the ugly, but not entirely unsympathetic face of a balance demon.

"Ease up, toots. Leaders don't know everything – it's the job of their support crew and advisers to point out mistakes like that. But then, support crews aren't ever perfect either. And sometimes, fixing one problem just kicks off another one no matter _what_ you do." Whistler squeezed her shoulder and stepped away.

"Now – there aren't any more Slayers where you're going – but there are Potentials. What you need Drusilla for, is to help you find them. What you need Faith for – though technically you could've gone with Kendra – is to hold the Slayer Scythe for precision casting. You need Red both for precision casting for those times, but also for massive effects when the need is _actually_ there. You need Wilma there not just to comprehend their technology, but to master their information systems – so you can check to see if whoever you're Slayerising is suitable, _and_ to find targets to point them at. Oh, also to find other allies. And what we need _you_ for is to be the Champion – the official stamp of the Powers' approval in what you all do, because there are both certain arcane protections that it grants you all _and_ because once you're actually there, it keeps the Powers' direct footprint to a minimum."

"And… uh, aren't we missing something for all that lovely Slayerisin'?" Spike deadpanned. "Like, a shiny red scythe?"

"Normally, yes. But when you get there, you'll find the Scythe waiting for you." He paused, and made sure to clarify, "As in, _right there_ waiting for you. Remember that boon I gave you earlier, the one I'd tell you later what it is? That's what it is – you not having to track it down to where its last resting place was. Don't worry about it being stolen or anything, either – there'll be a paper trail and everything."

"Is it just me…" Fred wondered, "…or are you steering us into taking boons for things you would've done for us anyway? I mean, you give us a boon for asking you about something that lets you tell us about Slayers…"

The group collectively twitched.

"Another one for powering up former vampires while keeping them human, only for me to pick a former vampire seer…" Spike added, nodding cynical agreement to Fred's idea.

"More funds to tide us over for asking about what arrangements there were – with a specific reference to more _time_ to settle and prepare?" Wesley speculated.

"Not to mention all those boons you gave us for picking the 'mandatory picks'," Willow snapped. She obviously still had her back up over the chewing-out Whistler had given her. "All just to get us to pick more people, and get more chances at the people we need?"

Whistler's smile had been growing as he listened. Now he clapped his hands to get them all to stop. "You're not wrong. Remember what I said about Realm One, and how the Powers act there when it comes to handing out favours?"

Angel nodded reluctantly. "They don't. They just lead you to it."

"Right – non-interference is the name of the game. Minimal footprint. _Balance_. Because the more we do even a little bit directly, the more the other side gets to. Doing it like this? It keeps down the cost – and, leaves you some more open options in the bank for the mission itself, once you all have a better idea what the mission is going to _specifically_ need. I just haven't been pointing those ones out. Get me?"

"Wait a minute." Jenny stared hard at the balance demon. "If the Powers are going to all this effort for this realm – what's the other side going to do to compensate?"

"Good question – but the answer is, _we're_ the ones compensating. That realm: it's actually been isolated for a while, from all sides. Seems the lockdown got lifted, and when the higher-ups got around to taking a look, they found a bunch of Big Bads crawling round and weighing down the scales." He hastened to reassure them, "They aren't demonic – no, it's all a home-grown type of evil. The battlefield's still mutated now to the point where we can draft in supernatural pinch-hitters just to balance things up."

Jenny nodded with relief. So did many of the others – they'd been told they weren't up against demons, and it would have been a nasty surprise to find out the Powers had been wrong about the brief.

"And now we're coming to the close. Because, there's been an assumption all of you have been making – an assumption it's time to find out whether or not it's on the button. Buffy."

"Yeah?" she said. She had mostly got herself under control over the whole 'Slayerise everybody' thing, though she'd probably go to pieces later. At least the new excitement was almost over. Right?

"I called you the Champion. I could also call you a bearer of the Standard. You're the nucleus, the genesis – the one girl who everyone here holds in common – either through knowing you, or through knowing Angel.

"What I didn't call you – which you still might be, depending on if you pass this test…"

' _Oh great,_ another _test…_ ' she internally moaned.

"…the test of picking the right people with the right skills – not a new test…" Whistler added.

She gave him a grateful smile. ' _Phew._ "

"…is _the leader_."

Blink.

"M'ner m'ner?"

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Why yes, that _was_ a Muppets reference. Why do you ask?


	10. All For One

**Disclaimer:** Refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Enh, longish one here. Still short as I could make it without skimping on characterisation.

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Ten: All For One**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Whistler cracked a little, reflexive grin. Buffy was actually pretty sure it was just his reaction to the nonsense that had just slipped out…or Drusilla adding ' _doo doooop, doo-doo-doop_ '. She tried again.

"I-I'm not the leader?"

That… that felt weird, saying that.

"Not unless you pass the test." He shrugged. "And come to think of it, not unless you agree to being the leader. You _can_ always say no."

"Oh, just wait one _moment_." Giles whipped off his glasses, glaring furiously at the balance demon.

"Giles?"

He stopped and looked at her. "My apologies, Buffy. You can of course be the leader or not, it is entirely your decision. But!" He went right back to throwing eye-daggers at Whistler. "It occurs that there's one other little boon – or rather, _major_ boon – that went unexplained.

"Tell me, Whistler: is that so-called 'major' boon, the leadership position itself?"

Whistler regarded him neutrally. Then he shrugged. "A lotta no – and a little yes. You all never _did_ ask what the actual mission reward was."

Giles paused, grinding his teeth. "Fair enough. Can we ask _now_?"

"Right. I've mentioned boon-ins for participation – some of them you've already been paid, some of them you still need to choose. I've mentioned pre-mission boons – like the one's I've been giving you since you got here. There'll also be boons you earn – both as a group and personally – while you're _on_ the mission. Those ones can basically be called 'karma in action'; do good things, hit major milestones, that kinda thing – and you'll get rewarded for it by having things made easier down the line.

"Now, everything I just rattled off – is strictly on the 'minor' scale. Which is where the _post_ -mission boons come in."

Whistler paused, looking each of them in the eye to make sure they were paying attention. Even Drusilla looked his way long enough to dip an impatient nod.

"Each of you, get a moderate-level boon. That's obviously in between a major and a minor boon. How you spend it… well, it can be split and spent on multiple things, or all be traded in for a single big thing. We'll talk that over after the mission is done.

"The _leader_ , though: the leader gets a major boon, for serving as the leader. The leader shoulders the responsibility, lives with it when things go wrong, so the leader gets the biggest reward. _That's_ the boon – for being picked as the leader, _and_ completing the mission. That also means – if she's not the leader, she _still_ gets a moderate boon. And that's _still_ a pretty darn big miracle simply for the asking.

"Okay? That clear things up? Good!"

Whistler turned back to Buffy.

"Now. There's one more mandatory pick to make. And there's two spots left. You make the right pick? As you're no doubt expecting, you pick the last spot too. Here's the thing, though – this pick is _yours_. No name-calling from the others. That said, you do get help."

The balance demon strolled around toward the bus. "The rest of you are going to take a few minutes. Talk among yourselves if that helps – because I want each of you to think up some advice. What you're going to give her advice on, will be something about _why_ she should pick someone, or _how_ she should pick them, or something similar. Not who, but why. And no 'what such-and-such said', please – the best piece of real advice you can come up with.

"Then you're going to go over, one by one – no particular order – and you're each going to tell her your advice. Then _you_ , Buffy, are going to get a few minutes to make a decision on who to call. And then you're going to tell us who you picked and why.

"You all understand?"

They all murmured their agreement.

"Right, then – begin. Buffy, come over here for a tick."

She followed him over to the bus. Whistler regarded her carefully.

"You haven't really taken a look at them yet, have you?" He tilted his head to indicate the frozen array of statuettes, the scattering of them around the bus and the half-a-dozen near the lip of the crater.

Buffy looked at them, really _looked_ at them for the first time. At the girls, Kennedy and Rona and Vi and Caridad and many others whose names she'd tried to be careful not to use unless she'd heard someone else call them by that. It wasn't that she didn't _know_ their names, it was that she hadn't quite got around to linking them to the right faces. And she finally took note of the younger faces that were missing, the ones that never made it out of the pit, doing her best to remember the faces if not the names. She could always get the names later; between Willow and hopefully Giles and Faith (assuming they all got the same Potentials), they could work it out. The ones who hadn't made it into the pit in the first place, Annabelle and Chloe and Molly, were…less trouble to remember.

Robin was in some pain, but on closer inspection it looked worse than it was. He should be fine if the wound didn't get infected. Andrew looked terrible, racked with guilt over something. Probably Anya. It was always going to be a big risk, taking him into a battlefield like that one – but he'd wanted to come, or at least wasn't smart and cowardly enough to flee. What could she have done? It was Willow and Xander all over again, all the way back to the Harvest. She could try her best to keep them out, but that didn't mean they co-operated, or even _got_ to be kept out when they actually tried.

' _Well._ ' She drifted over to the group of six standing at the edge of their old home. A frozen snapshot in time, of an ending and a new beginning. Her old self was still wearing that smile. ' _At least I can keep Dawn and Xander out of_ this _fight._ '

Even if _she_ never got to see them again. A tear slid down her cheek.

"What happens to us after?"

"After the mission?" Whistler said quietly. He had followed her over. "Well – that's part of why it's such a large group. It's the rules – one person per realm…at least at any one time. Some of you might want to return to a point after you're dead in your home realm, or move to a different realm altogether. But most of you? I'll tell you this for free: part of the mission is making yourselves a place there. A new life together, where there'll be something close to peace after it's all done."

"…Right," Buffy whispered. So she _would_ never see them again.

Buffy slipped like a ghost between bodies as hard as granite, deliberately drifting a hand along Giles' arm in farewell as she passed, stopping first in front of Xander – after collecting Drusilla's hovering tarot pack so she could see his face. His faced was etched with good post-battle humour and exhaustion and a little pain of the 'ouchies' variety, and his sole eye radiated the same. Only the faintest glimmer of anguish lurked under it; she honestly didn't think most people would catch it. She was actually kinda surprised _she_ caught it, though that might have had something to do with the wind changing and his face staying that way.

He'd always stayed. He'd been there for her, for over six years. He'd never stopped. Either fighting or being there for her, though his track record was _far_ from flawless when it came to both and both also tended to mess up the rest of his life. She'd fled, Giles had fled, Willow had been packed off to magic rehab; Oz had fled, Cordy had _tried_ to flee, Angel and Riley and even Spike had fled _her_ … and as much as she tried not to blame the dead for dying, sometimes it just wasn't enough. Xander was the constant. The one who had never left.

Well, now she was the one leaving where even _he_ couldn't follow. Buffy stretched on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his hard cheek. "I love you." Not like that, but he'd know what she meant. "Take care of yourself… and me and Dawn too, like you always do. Goodbye."

Then she slid over to stand before Dawn. Her face was a sculpture of so many things. Wonder and awe, and worry for her (and probably for Xander, this being Dawn of the Xander fanclub) – along with stress and more exhaustion and that certain touch of grumpiness that tended to come to her with being short on sleep and private time. She was caught mid-speech, but her gaze was still riveted on her big sister. Or at least the one she knew was there.

Oh god, she was so beautiful. …And so much taller than her, it wasn't even funny. _Darn_ those big little sisters.

She tried, for a long time, to find the words to describe what she felt when she looked at Dawn. Not too hard, though. Words could come later, if they ever did. Mostly, she just _felt_. Felt and tried to burn it as deep inside herself as she could. Her sister. Her reason. Her life.

At least there was _a_ Buffy who would keep her safe, and try to see her become the beautiful and happy woman she could be. It wasn't _her_. Or it _was_ , but it wasn't. She expelled a snort/sniffle. ' _Fire bad, Dawn pretty?_ '

"I love you, butt-pain… Dawn. I'll miss you." No goodbyes here. In her heart, and for a certain sense of reality, she'd never leave her. "And I'll always remember you."

—ox-oxo-xo—

She slipped out of the frozen huddle, scrubbing at her eyes. Nearby, Angel stood apart from the non-frozen huddle (which had formed something a bit like a line, kinda, if you were dyslexic…or something), looking thoughtful. Presumably he was going first.

She stopped, a little way from the others. Angel came over, indeed being first.

"Hi, Buffy." They traded wry grins. "We've both been leaders of our own teams. Or…Standard Bearers, maybe. Champions, which always seems to mean 'leaders'. Each of our teams have their own… dynamic, I guess? How they work together, how they live together. How they avoid each other, when they have to. How they argue. How to pick a direction and go for it. How they're led, and how they lead themselves.

"This is a new team. But a lot of the elements are still the same. A lot of the people are still the same – only, they're better. Better at 'team blend', which probably means better at teamwork. Think of how your team works – I think Fred's covering how ours does, she's got more knowledge about how we worked after all this. Think of what's there, and what you can build with it." He smiled down at her. "…Good luck."

Next was Wesley.

"Buffy. I think… I think Whistler's choice of words has been deliberate for most if not all of our time here. For instance, a Champion in historical parlance has always been someone who fought in the place of someone who could not. A Standard Bearer is the bearer of a standard – of belief, of behaviour, of purpose, which both symbolises and unites all those who march under it.

"Did you know, Angel fired us all once?"

"What, really?" Okay, she'd never heard _that_ one!

"Yes, it was over Darla and Drusilla – he was on the warpath, and he fired us rather than listen to our attempts to convince him to act prudently – and, to lose himself in his focus on our newest nemesis. He eventually came back of his own accord… and we very much enjoyed making him earn our allegiance once more." He smirked a nostalgic little smirk, then became serious.

"There is a difference between a Champion and a Standard Bearer. The difference is in the Standard: Angel is the Champion, but Angel Investigations is…was our Standard. And that standard is simple and all-encompassing: _We help the helpless_. Be aware that by being the chief selector of many of us, you exert a great deal of influence on our direction and tactics – no matter _who_ leads." He paused. "Be aware also that Whistler has said a great deal this day, and that he may have laid many such nuggets of gold amidst the seeming dross.

"I will leave you with one last thought: in historical parlance, a Standard Bearer almost never actually _fought_. After all, he was carrying around a ruddy great pole. And keeping it upright so that everyone could see it."

He smiled more sardonically than she'd ever thought the old Wesley capable of as he walked away, Willow replacing him.

"Hey Buffy! Heh…" She tried a smile, clearly very very nervous! "We talked, and we can't think of what skills we're missing. Unless it's leadership, and we have so leadership! We have you who led us, we have Giles who led us back in high school, we have Angel who led people, we have Riley who led people. So it's either something about a kind of leadership, or something about the _team_ we're missing – I mean, something to make the team _work_ , you know? And can I stop now? This is much too much like public speaking and I just bet Faith will try asking Whistler for rotten tomatoes!"

Buffy blinked repeatedly and tried to see if she'd missed anything. "Leadership or teamwork, no-one has a clue, got it."

"Kay, bye!" She turned to flee, turned back round and glomped Buffy with an, "I believe in you!" whispered into her ear, and then did flee. Her place was duly exchanged with another hyper genius, though this one was a brunette.

"Hi there! Buffy, right? You know, I don't think we ever actually met! I'm Fred." Buffy shook hands, a little bemused. "We can get to know each other better later on though, because right now I'm here to talk about Angel, and Angel's group, and how it works…"

Fred talked for at least ten minutes, some of it faster than she'd heard out of anyone bar Willow. A lot of it sounded interesting, in an 'ooh, blackmail!' kinda way, though she could really have dealt with it in smaller portions, while she was awake enough to fully appreciate the babble. Almost despite the verbal torrent, Buffy did begin to assemble a mental image of the way Angel's team worked – the way that he led and they followed, something that she'd never really seen Angel actually _do_.

She could see where there _had_ to be some differences. The main one was time: Angel's people were paid, so it was a full-time job even if the hours and pay were both screwy sometimes. All the Scoobies had their own lives, with school and college and work, that stuff. They either did it part-time or they burned the candle at both ends, and while they tried to help out whenever they could… well, their own lives would suffer if they were dropped for too long.

Another one was the roles. Angel was the Boss, what he said went (usually) – after the others had pointed him in the right direction. Fred was the brain and Wesley was the bookworm, while Cordelia was Vision Girl (something the Scoobies mostly didn't have), Lorne was the schmoozer and diplomat with the connections (again, not something they really had – Anya was the closest, and that was only because she ran the Magic Box and kept her ears peeled), and Gunn was…mostly the pinch-hitter muscle, though back before they'd rescued Fred he had his own street gang to call for backup, and after the evil law firm takeover he would apparently book himself in for a law degree downloaded straight into his head.

One thing the same was, without the Champion the rest couldn't keep up. But take one of the support out, and everything started backfiring.

Eventually Fred wound down, shook her hand again and wandered away. Spike sauntered over next.

"Hey, ducks." He'd lit a cigarette, and the smoke trailed behind him in a frozen cloud, kinda like she imagined a scent trail might look like. "No rousing ra-ra speech this time – nah, this time I'm covering the Slayerettes." He took a drag, blowing it off to the side carefully. Strangely, it didn't smell as intensely bad as she'd been expecting. Maybe the smell was frozen too? "You know I tried breaking you up, back in the old bad days? Right, now that's on your side…"

Spike's drawling speech took less than half as much time as Fred's. Not that it really mattered, because she knew most of the general details. Key word being 'most', because there were bits that she'd either never heard of, never thought of or managed to ignore.

From what he'd heard, for instance, both Giles and Xander had done a fair bit behind the scenes, organising things or cleaning up the odd mess and never mentioning anything. Giles would constantly be sourcing new books, or at least more dusty old ones, while Xander often got attacked on his way to the bakery or pizza place. Both of them would visit Willy sometimes, wheedling information out of him with bribery and self-interest instead of beating the crap out of him like Buffy did – more 'anything interesting?' than 'answer this unless you wanna swallow your teeth again!'. And at least once each, they had cleaned up behind their overly moral or overly narrow-sighted friends in lethal fashion. Spike confirmed that it was Giles who had smothered Ben to death after Buffy left him alive, so that Glory wouldn't return. And he'd also heard rumours of Xander, and an adventure involving zombies, a bomb and the Sunnydale High boiler-room… on the same night the rest of them were in the library, fending the Sisterhood away from the Hellmouth and its resident hydra. Neither of these things had ever been so much as mentioned.

Motivations were next. There, Spike had some blunt theories. Willow, and her fear of being a victim feeding her need for power. Xander, and his resignation to being the powerless one without even trying seriously to work around it. Giles, and his rejected past leading to a fixation on clear-headed thinking, which clashed often with crises demanding quick and decisive thinking. Tara, Anya and Oz, and their peripheral positions.

In the end, he didn't really _go_ anywhere with his talk. It was just bringing up some of what she hadn't noticed before, and trying to trace out how the Slayerettes worked by their weaknesses.

Jenny Calender was next, stepping carefully to avoid the smoke-trail. Buffy met her a little ways off to the left to keep clear of it too – she didn't want to go walking through that.

"So, I've spent time with both your groups. Over two years with yours Buffy, then over four with Angel's. Granted, my version of Angel Investigations had me instead of Wesley – I imagine that meant more computers than books, though Angel did find a lot of his own books and Rupe was usually up for information exchanges. Try to keep in mind, though: some of the personalities you've heard of, are different than the ones you've heard of – even if the bases are the same.

"Wesley is different, much more of a lone wolf – and much more of a leader; but think back to your own past with him, and you'll realise he was never just a follower. Angel's become…not so much _more_ petty, but it's more obvious as he's gotten used to being around a fair number of people on a constant basis. Faith has been a successful Slayer, usually fighting with just a Watcher at her side, for the last four years – she was always independent and outspoken, but unlike your Faith over there, she now has the track record to back it up. This Rupert is more devoted to you, or at least to the idea of you – but that means we'll all have to keep an eye on him so he takes care of himself, instead of just letting him do as he will. Fred is from a future where she'd just started dating Wesley – for him, that hasn't happened yet and maybe never will. You and Willow both have far bigger issues with your Faith that this one's analogues; and Faith gets defensive, so a lot of good work can be undone very quickly. And that doesn't even begin to cover the unknown factor of an ensouled _Drusilla_ of all people in the mix.

"That said: we are a team. And we will be a team for a long time to come. We're all aware of that, and we'll all do our best to pull together and make it work – it's just a matter of each of us being careful not to stray too far into unknown territory on our own. And that includes the leader, whoever it is."

She departed with a nod, as Riley walked up.

He opened with a hug, which was much appreciated and made sense too – he hadn't really been there for when she closed down and shut herself away. "Okay. You've probably worked out by now that we're running to a theme, right?"

Buffy nodded. "Uh-huh. Blend the teams, hold up to standards, leadership or team, here's Angel's team, here's your team uncensored, they're not really us but teamwork yay!"

Riley chuckled, "Yeah, close. But don't forget the one where this Whistler guy's dropping obscure hints left and right. Anyway, I'm supposed to cover my own team – my squad. And there's things I could say about cross-training, rotations, slotting in temporary squad members, fitting teams together by skill-set. But honestly, I'm thinking there's one thing we all _really_ need. And no offence: that thing is _therapy_."

"…Riley: when you say 'no offence' like that, it's hard not to get offended," she flatly stated.

He shrugged. "And yet it's true. I've talked to guys who have done combat tours – my newer outfit likes to scout veterans when it can. They needed therapy, too. You can't live in a warzone for years on end, and come out on the other end completely sane and happily bottling it all away till the cows come home – you need to talk to _somebody_. For most of my guys, that's a chaplain we got loaned to us." He gave her a small grin. "He also blesses holy water. And holy oil, that _really_ works in paint-balls." Riley paused and took a breath.

"If you can't find a therapist, you at least need someone you can trust to hear you out; someone who tries to offer advice, never judges, and never says anything to anyone else – or does their level best at all that. And that goes for all of us. I hope that helps."

Next was Faith, and Buffy couldn't help but grin a bit as she swayed closer. Something about Faith giving a prepared speech tickled her funny bone.

"…Right, I guess I gotta say something." She muttered something rude under her breath. "Okay, here goes. I've worked with Wes for four years. He points, I Slay – that's how it runs. So I know about orders. I _also_ know about stupid orders that'll get your stupid ass killed for followin' them, which is why I took special care to beat that kind of crap right outta Wes at the first damn opportunity." Faith snickered. "He was pretty good about it, actually – once it sunk in for him that I didn't wanna die cheap and I wasn't _gonna_ die cheap. So he started planning better, with back-ups and all that shit.

"Now, the effin' Powers That Be are backin' this play. A no-shit, all-seeing Seer is backin' this play. Some of the most awesome bastards and bitches on the face of six Earths and counting, are all backin' this play. And all the signs say, we're getting a leader who's _worth_ that. So if _that_ leader leads, then I'll follow 'em all the way to the gates of hell." Faith blinked, and snorted. "You know… Again.

"On the other hand: if that leader has a head full of crap, then I'm going to beat that crap back out. 'Cause our leader doesn't need that crap. There ya go, that's my speech."

Faith walked off chuckling, and Buffy couldn't help but laugh herself.

Giles walked past, raising a whimsical brow at (T)he passing Slayer. He came to a halt before her. "…Dare I ask?"

Buffy shrugged a shoulder. "I'unno. Some load of crap." She managed to keep a straight face for all of two seconds before she burst out laughing again at the old-fashioned look on Giles' face. "Okay, okay. Your show."

"Thank you, Buffy. After speaking it over with the others – debating group mechanics, brainstorming possible skills and qualities, attempting to sift through Whistler's many words, so on and so forth – I believe that we may have come up with the most likely of required roles that remains to be selected. We apologise for taking so long with this, but it is my belief that Whistler had us each generate a unique argument for a reason. Namely, that this _is_ your choice – and thus, your right to hear all of our reasoning and make your own decisions based on that and your own opinions. Please understand that we name no names – nor indeed do we have any collective preference as to who fills the role should you attempt to make your selection using such criteria. Again, that choice is yours to make."

He fell silent. It eventually occurred to her that he was waiting to see if she understood. Or possibly, if she wanted to pretend not to.

"No, I get it. Best guess for the mandatory pick, no names at all, now dazzle me!"

Giles took a deep breath, and blew it out.

"…We need a Heart."

Buffy froze. Giles saw the rising conclusion and gently shook his head.

"Do not misunderstand: this is not a spell component, nor are we now so limited by such a small number of people to choose from. Put simply, we need someone whose primary goal is to keep the team emotionally healthy and working together as best as possible." He frowned thoughtfully. "Riley mentioned something about changing his speech at the last minute, and suggesting therapy as a skill?"

She nodded a little, still feeling like any movement could shatter her.

"The most highly rated skill of a Heart, in this context, would be as a trusted confidant – a therapist in all meanings of the word except the financial and, perhaps, the educational. I would like for you to consider who would best fit this role, among such friends and acquaintances who are not already present. Think both in terms of yourself and of the rest of us. And then consider if any of those names might appeal to you as a selection."

He sighed, removing and polishing his glasses. "Keep in mind, however, that this is merely our best guess. There may be something we're missing. So do try to remember what Whistler has spoken of over our time here. In any case, I wish you the best of luck." Giles replaced his glasses, leaned in and embraced her briefly. "And know that I am already proud of you for holding together so well despite all this."

Giles went back to the line, passing Drusilla as she glided along in an abstract dance. It took the seeress a while to arrive, and when she did she stopped and looked into Buffy's eyes for what seemed like minutes. Without moving, except to breathe.

"…Well?"

She eventually shook her head, and quietly offered:

"We will have what we need. _You_ will have what _you_ need. So what do you want?"

And then she was skipping away, shuffling her tarot deck as Buffy was left to try to piece everything together. And also try to work out when exactly Drusilla took her cards back.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Hmm, needs more cliff. Well that's easy to fix…


	11. And One For

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** See? Cliff!

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Eleven: And One For...**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

Buffy's legs kicked idly at the cliff face as she leaned back, propping herself up with her hands. Nice thing about the world around them being frozen in place – no need to worry about the crater's lip giving way under her. The others had wandered off to look at the local scenery; Buffy could faintly hear them comparing notes about differences between their worlds from where she was sitting. But she'd picked her own scenery to look at while she thought things out.

A wide-view panorama of utter devastation spread out in a rubble-filled bowl before her. There were some broken-off bits of buildings around the sides, but most of it formed little mounds at the bottom. Well, they looked little from here. She would _not_ want to go climbing over those things. But apparently that wasn't going to stop _someone_ doing it, because Spike was supposed to be stuck haunting Angel weeks from now.

That helped a little, knowing it wasn't over for Spike. It gave her some hope. And not just for him, either; maybe there were ways to fix some of her other mistakes.

Like all those girls who just got made Slayers. She'd have to get Willow working on how to remove power from those that didn't want it, the ones who would have said no if they were given a real choice… and the ones who would abuse it, too. Just because Faith wasn't guaranteed to go bad, didn't mean others wouldn't – especially if they couldn't find them in time. And how many girls would die because their new and unknown powers attracted the monsters they were never really meant to fight?

It was still weird. Even if she might not be the leader, that didn't stop her from thinking like one. Or at least like she imagined what it was like to be a leader. Feel responsible for stuff – or have responsibility dumped on her head. World to save, people to protect, stuff to deal with, and everyone looked to her.

' _Well, it wasn't like anyone else volunteered_ ,' she reflected. No-one else had offered. Of course, it hadn't stopped everyone from complaining and throwing her out when she made the bad calls. And Buffy was pretty sure she'd make some more bad calls. She wondered what would happen then.

Buffy wondered who Whistler was going to pick as leader if she made the wrong choice. Like Willow said, there were plenty of leaders. Angel led his own team. Riley was a squad leader. Giles had pretty much led her and the Scoobies for years, though she often didn't listen. Even Wesley had drawn a bunch of people (and demons) together to take on a common enemy, though that was more like finding a bunch of allies and pointing them all at enemies they already had – which pretty much covered Giles too, only with less of the 'finding allies' and more of the 'making sure the allies did their homework'.

Then again, that was assuming Whistler didn't just call up a leader from his choice of pick.

What it would be like being a follower, instead of a leader or a lone wolf or a 'first among equals' type? Not being the one responsible for everything – the big plans, the drawing of the line… Somehow, Buffy didn't think she'd be too good at it. She'd been a Slayer too long, had it all hang on her and her alone too many times to be comfortable with standing by when it was all on someone else.

Honestly? Buffy wanted to be a leader about as much as she wanted to be a Slayer. It wasn't so much that she _liked_ it, as that she'd never really been given a choice about it and had been doing it for long enough to feel uncomfortable about someone else doing it. Or had a hard time remembering how to be anything else, sometimes.

…But what the hell. It would change or it wouldn't. Buffy imagined Angel and Wesley and some of the others would have their own issues with following anyway, and they were willing to try too. Lead or follow, either way she'd find a way to deal.

In the meantime – the others had all assumed she was the leader, they'd given her all the advice they could, and now they were expecting her to make the best choice she could. So she might as well try.

Buffy ran over what she knew, doing her best to kick her wandering mind back into focus.

Leadership or team? Everyone thought it was the team, something the team needed. Giles said they needed a Heart. Riley said they needed a therapist, which was another way of saying 'Heart'. Spike and Fred had gone over their teams. Jenny had pointed out people from both teams would be different that what she or the others expected. Faith and Wesley had reminded her that the leader's words were not exactly the Ten Commandments. Only Drusilla had really said anything different.

Team or skills? Apart from Riley's therapy idea, they were stumped on skills. So, team it was – except, again, from Drusilla. Though that was _Drusilla_ , and that was assuming she didn't mean something else while being cryptic.

Did Whistler say something they'd all missed? He'd definitely _not_ said who would lead if Buffy didn't. She couldn't think of anything else he'd not said… pshyeah right, there was _tons_ he hadn't said. But what did he _say_?

The _last_ thing he said was that they would be staying there after the mission was done. In a place far in the future. And they couldn't go home. Well, Ms. Calender might, and maybe Fred – her guess was, they were dead so they could go back. But after however long the mission took, would they? After working with everyone else here for that long?

Maybe they could have the best of both worlds? Whistler could and had twinned people, just to get them here. And if they won, the Powers would owe them all a bunch of massive favours. Why _couldn't_ they do it again, send their twins to fill their old spots?

Still – if they wanted to be able to put up with each other for that long, chances were they _would_ need a Heart. Just look at Angel's team – four years, and they'd just lost the last one who had been around from the start apart from Angel himself. Meanwhile, Xander had been around from practically the first day back in Sunnydale, and not only was he around over six years later but so were Willow and even Giles. She might have lost a bunch of people out from the sides – Ms. Calender (easiest to call her that, and call this one Jenny, she decided – cut down on the confusion), Kendra, Faith (at least for years, until she came back), Cordelia, Oz, Riley, Tara… But even after all that, she _still_ had her original team.

' _So. Even if Whistler says I'm wrong, the others are still right – Heart equals Yay! Right, we're getting somewhere…_ '

Buffy was just glad Giles reminded her about there being more people to pick from than Xander. Besides, she had Riley's 'therapist' thing stuck in her head. To be brutal about it, Buffy probably _could_ have used therapy at more than one point there. She hadn't exactly run off to L.A. after junior year because she was after a holiday. Willow being packed off to Devon might as well have been called 'therapy'. And looking at this new Giles (actually, more like remembering his montage – right now he looked younger than he had in years, for good reason), she could see how him spending lots of time gone after Glory could count as therapy too. That or his own version of her time in L.A.. Angel had mentioned visiting a monastery in Tibet after Buffy had died, which pretty much _was_ therapy.

The problems with finding an _actual_ therapist were obvious. Buffy had quietly refreshed on what she would have had to do to get a degree in Psychology, back when Robin had hired her as a school counsellor – and it took years before they even _saw_ a patient. Even after that they mostly had to intern, which meant they were like Riley's age at the very youngest and tended to be more like Ms. Calender's or _Robin's_ age before they could really be trusted. Which added up to a problem picking something old enough that they hadn't picked already, let alone someone they knew.

That, and therapists didn't socialise with their clients. It was a rule and everything. Which was going to be a _real_ problem if they had to live with everyone else.

At least Riley had given her something to aim for if she couldn't pick a therapist. ' _What was it… don't judge, don't spill, try to help if you can…_ ' That sounded close enough.

That _could_ cover Xander, sometimes. His pep talks could be things of beauty, he'd even managed to save the world with one of his better ones. Four years on, and only now was she finding out about _another_ time he'd saved the world. (Spike talked about rumours, but _Spike_ even mentioning the possibility of _Xander_ saving them all… it had to be either true or a really, _really_ badly-timed joke.) So, he had 'don't spill' down. Only… He judged. He judged a _lot_. And that was great when he judged on your side, but when he turned it on you? _Ouch_.

On the other hand, she did remember Tara coming up with a really good example of what Riley was getting at. When Buffy had been freaking out over whether she was even human any more, Tara had heard her out, did her magic to work out if she was right or wrong, been supportive through every bit of it, and never told a soul until Buffy spilled the beans herself. For that matter, she had fond memories of her mom doing the same kind of thing. Mom could have been a pretty good Heart too, if she'd had more to do with the Slaying.

No one else really fit that kind of mould, at least no one she could think of. So it was Xander, Tara or Mom.

She lolled her head back and looked off to the right, where the others were still mingling with the living statues.

The smirking Giles and Jenny were listening to Faith as The Slayer did bunny-ears over her own double's head, and Buffy noted with a little grin how the older duo were standing comfortably close together. If she were a betting gal, there'd be money on those two. The same thing was happening over with Wesley and Fred, with the ex-Watcher actually giving Fred a small but happy smile as she chatted away at a mile a minute about something or other Buffy couldn't catch. Drusilla had practically latched onto Spike, and he didn't seem to be arguing – though that one might just be down to habit. Either way, she'd like to see the two of them working something out. While she might feel _something_ for Spike, and definitely did care for him, the fact that he'd miraculously been turned human didn't change the fact that she _still_ didn't see fat grandkids in their future.

Meanwhile, Willow was with Riley and Angel – who were actually talking and not beating their chests, Buffy saw with surprise and pleasure. Would wonders never cease? – standing over by the Potentials. Over by Kennedy.

Angel looked over, saw her looking, and smiled. Buffy smiled back.

…Was this a _theme_ they were running here? Interdimensional hookup? Only Riley, Willow and Faith looked like they were going to be available in the long term! And that was assuming Faith didn't start chasing after him for booty calls, though she couldn't be anywhere near sure about if he'd take her up on that one…

Ahem. Xander, Tara or Mom. Mom, Tara or Xander… Which one did she want?

 _What do you want?_ Drusilla had asked her.

Maybe… Maybe _this_ was what Whistler was driving at, with wanting her to decide? About what this said for her leadership? They were all in this for the long haul – why _shouldn't_ she want to see everyone happy, especially (she glanced at Angel again) when she might be able to find happiness herself? Why _shouldn't_ a leader want that for her people? And why _shouldn't_ a friend want that for her friends?

Besides, leading the Potentials, trying to be General Buffy – it had nearly ended in disaster so many times. If she was stuck being leader, she would probably be better off going back to something like the 'first among equals' thing.

And Tara was a witch too, so that worked out nicely!

—ox-oxo-xo—

"So," Whistler asked once everyone had assembled. "What's the call?"

"Tara," Buffy said. Willow gasped, her eyes nearly falling out.

"And why?" he asked.

"To be our Heart. To keep us whole." She gave them all a wry smile. "And mostly sane. _Aaand_ also, so we don't have a mopey Willow."

Whistler gazed at her for ten seconds. Literally, for a silent count of ten. Then he snapped his fingers.

As far as dead friends went, the transitive deed appeared to have been relatively mundane for the departed Tara Maclay. Not blown up or torn apart or savaged by demons or burnt to a juicy crisp. Just severely beaten. The bruises healed, the clothes expelled their bloodstains, and Tara would have fallen over her long skirt if not for Spike dashing in and taking her arm.

The next-to-last arrival reflexively brushed herself off and walked over towards Willow, who was standing at the front of the group with her hands clenched over her heart and as pale as a ghost. They looked at each other from two yards away.

Tara opened her arms, just in time for Willow to fly into them and weep all over her, the redhead's words muffled against Tara's blouse and probably impossible to decipher. The translation was obvious anyway.

They broke apart only when a hated voice issued from the viewscreen that had fired up at the crater's lip.

"… _You think you can do that to_ me _? Well think again!"_

What followed was definitely not what Buffy was expecting. She'd maybe been hoping to see her alternate self dodge or knock the gun out of Warren's hand with a thrown knife or something. What happened instead was a demonstration of how being petite could count against you in a fight. Xander didn't grapple. No, he just put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her sideways; that Buffy instinctively resisted the push, but was still moved enough that the bullet grazed her ribs instead. That Warren still ran, or attempted – he even managed to get as far as the back gate before Xander tackled him down and laid him out with a haymaker.

Then that Xander heard Willow's hysterics, went charging up the stairs with that Buffy following behind after kicking the gun away and grabbing Warren, and things went right off the rails. Buffy honestly didn't think Willow would have done it at any other time, but upon barrelling into the spectacle of Willow just about to truly annoy a death god, he basically bullied and just about _forced_ her to transfer the damage from Tara's body to _his_.

"How did that even work?" she mumbled torn between awe and horror, as Willow used CPR to revive her healed lover.

"The same way that CPR revived you, Buffy." Giles was pale as he polished his glasses, studiously looking away from the viewing portal. "The soul does not immediately flee the body after clinical death, at least not for several minutes. If nothing is physically wrong with the body, or at least not sufficiently wrong, the person can be revived within the space of that time."

"As for _how_ she did it," Jenny quietly commented from beside Giles, "I imagine she simply brute-forced it."

Meanwhile, only the arrival of the police saved that Warren's life. And that wasn't a good outcome for him, either – Willow was all too ready to soup herself up and bust into the police station to take him when Tara, with the absolutely furious Dawn's able help, instead managed to convince her to punish all three of them from afar. The entire Trio had any magic they had bound, and were then… Buffy blushed even as she grinned viciously at the explanation Tara gave that Buffy and Dawn. Basically, they were going to be extremely popular in jail, and also going have trouble sitting down for the rest of their natural lives. And compared to what had happened here, Buffy found herself being _perfectly_ fine with that. Even _that_ Buffy scarcely protested.

A vaguely familiar face who Tara identified as Michael Czajak – one of Rack's old clients – turned out to be Andrew's replacement in what went a lot like Buffy's past year. Only, that Tara – _this_ Tara – had spent months with her Willow, Buffy and Dawn finding out everything about Xander that she could. And she had taken the 'Heart' thing to heart…pun intended. So a lot of what was shown next involved Tara talking things over with the Potentials – memorising their names, and learning their issues, and being there for them in a way that any Xander would have been proud and envious of…and so explained her presence here. There were a few differences, mainly involving Michael being less of an massive nerd than Andrew would have been, a little bit of magic being used against the Bringers and Turok'Han (though not too much, as apparently the First Evil had taken steps to counteract them over there), and at least a couple things just did not happen for whatever reason.

In any case, the end played out the same…almost. That Anya lived even as her battle-partner Michael didn't, but the main difference was the influence that Tara had on her Willow's Slayer-Activation spell, cutting its reach to every Potential in the Tri-State area instead of all over the world.

"…Huh. It never really sunk in like that," Buffy murmured. "As far as magic and us, the First cut us off at the knees. Almost to the end…" She remembered that reaming she'd given them all after burying Chloe, how Willow had copped it. It couldn't have helped that she was basically the only one left by then who could do any more with magic than be a spare body for rituals.

It also struck her, looking through the screen at how happy that Tara looked with her Willow, that she was the only one of them who had been truly happy in their lives. Only Fred had been close, and her imminent death counted her out.

Well. Hopefully that happiness wouldn't be such a rare thing where they were going. No matter the challenge.

—ox-oxo-xo—

They gathered themselves, some more than others. Almost everyone had been affected in some way by the… Reunion wasn't the right word, and yet it still seemed to fit like a glove. But inevitably, the dozen newly-met companions fell quiet and turned to their host for the verdict.

Whistler took a deep breath, and huffed it out.

"…So close."

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Like you didn't see it coming by now!


	12. Of Eggs and Chickens, Cats and Kings

**Disclaimer:** refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** I went a little tongue-in-cheek here. I am not ashamed.

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Twelve: Of Eggs and Chickens, Cats and Kings**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

"Don't get me wrong," Whistler went on, "it's a _good_ choice. Tara'll do you good. You just didn't pick her for _all_ the right reasons."

She wasn't the leader.

It was… Buffy had kinda expected it, in a way, ever since Drusilla said her piece. _What do you want_ , she'd asked. _What do_ you _want?_ _What do you_ want _?_ _Pick what you want, because it's your last pick_ , she might as well have said. Picking Tara might have been for Willow's benefit as much as for everyone else's, but she still did pick who she wanted. And now she wasn't the leader.

…Wow. Despite the disappointment, Buffy found it surprisingly easy to bask in it. Sure, she was still in this, but now that much pressure had disappeared off her shoulders.

"Okay," she said through a bright, easy smile, "what did we miss?"

"You're not upset?" Willow blurted, reflecting the others' surprise.

Buffy shook her head, her smile widening. "Nah, I'm good. I'm done leading. Will _not_ miss the stress."

"And I'm glad to hear that," Whistler replied. "What you missed was a hint from me, a hint from Twinglish over there," he punctuated that with a thumb pointed at Wesley, "and one assumption you all never quite questioned."

"Ah," Wesley said. "So I was right about the Standard Bearer reference being important."

"Yep. Sadly, it seems you've been working alone for just a little too long. If you'd spent a bit o' time selling it to the others instead of trying to just slip it in, your point might have sunk in Buffy's head a little better. And the others might have caught that assumption in time."

"What assumption?" Tara asked, quietly but minus the stutter several of them were used to hearing from her. Months on end as the amateur therapist had done wonders for her confidence. "Even I was sure the Heart was the important thing. It was one reason I thought I would have a good chance of being picked."

"Simple. How many mandatory picks did I say there were, in total if you include Buffy here?"

"Six," several voices droned out.

"And how many mandatory roles or skills did I say there were?"

A moment of silence followed, filled with minds sifting through their short-term memories.

"Si— darn it!" Willow exclaimed.

"Yup. I did say I could call her a bearer of the Standard. Which she has been, in a sense. As a whole, you've all tended to follow her general standards, though there has been some straying from some of you – Summers included. Guns are bad. Monster is as monster does. Never kill humans. The fight matures you. Keep the fight in the night. Might makes right…" Whistler shrugged. "Most of you follow those standards as a matter of course, without even thinking about it any more. And mark me, it's _bitten_ you a time or ten – though to be fair, straying from those standards has cost you all even more.

"I could call her a bearer of the Standard. What I _didn't_ call her was the Standard Bearer."

"…Okay, what crap are ya peddling now?" Faith demanded, clearly recognising sophistry even if she didn't know the word for it. "And what's a Standard Bearer anyway?"

Wesley replied, "In…let's call them 'medieval' times, especially in large-scale battlefields such as were common in those times, a Standard Bearer would be a mobile rallying point for a regiment of troops. The troop would march or sortie under the Standard, or Banner, which is traditionally a very long pole or pike with a flag of some description mounted onto the top end – carried by the Standard Bearer. The idea is for both leaders and their troops to be able to tell at a glance where everyone under that command should be." He sighed.

"The problem, as I apparently did not allude to Ms. Summers in sufficiently clear language, is that Standards are very heavy and extremely unwieldy. The troops would guard most vigorously against any enemy who sought to attack the Standard and its Bearer – not only because striking the Standard would be a great blow to their command capabilities, but also because the Bearer was greatly hampered by needing to hold up his Standard and could not be trusted to survive on his own in the heat of battle."

Whistler then took up the banner of exposition. "And the gist of that role is: the Standard Bearer is the one that everyone else protects. In chess, they'd be the King – lose the King, lose the game."

The dozen absorbed this.

"…You wanted Xander, didn't you?" Buffy stated more than asked. Xander sounded like that – at least, he was the one other than Dawn and Mom that everyone tried to protect, no matter his protests. "Or… Mom?" Dawn wasn't the Heart, she was too young for it. But Mom could have been both.

"Actually, picking Tara for _both_ the right reasons would've worked out fine," Whistler corrected her. "See, I actually had three Tara Maclays, from two different realms _and_ your home one, waiting on your call. If you'd said 'screw that' to the advice you got and just went with the matchmaking, I woulda delivered on that. If you'd asked for Tara as both Heart and Standard Bearer – or, because that _is_ a pretty clunky and out-there term and I'd know what you meant anyway, something like 'someone for us to protect' or maybe even 'the one who brings us all together' – then you would have got the _other_ Tara."

"What was the difference between us?" Tara asked. "I mean, between me and the…third Tara?"

"Willow. In that one, Gingee was the one Warren shot and killed. That Tara went just as nuts as Gingee would have, did almost as much damage as Gingee would have… but her Xander talked her down just the same. The two of them bonded a lot over that, losing someone as central as she was to both of them. So did the Summers duo. From there, it wasn't much of a stretch to treat the Potentials the same way. So, Heart and Standard Bearer."

"…And how exactly does that make her a Standard Bearer?" Willow wondered.

"Hmm, how to explain this one…" Whistler grinned. "Okay, Red. You're on record as enjoying some fan-fiction. Do you know what a woobie is?"

"Oh? …Ooh! Ohhhh…"

The others waited. Willow shook herself.

"Oh. A woobie is someone with a tragic back-story that makes you feel all protective. So, someone we'd all want to protect _emotionally_ , not physically."

"Uh-huh." Spike emitted an abrupt snort. "And…how many of us have tragic back-stories here? I mean… Buffy. 'Nuff said. Angel – couldn't find happiness or he'd lose his soul. Willow – her lover gunned down in front of her. Me – again, 'nuff said. Dru – tortured to insanity _and_ death, kills for a century, then stack on Angel's problem. Fred – offed just as she's hooked up with her beau. Tara – offed, then her lover's best friend offs himself to bring her back to life. So, why the hell didn't any of us make that grade?"

"Simple reason, Billy: Standard Bearers stay off the front lines – either because they can't hack it there, or because they're just valued too much by everyone else for it to be worth putting them there. Remember, you all form around the Standard Bearer – that means the Standard Bearer is in the middle."

Whistler shrugged. " _But_ , it's seven roles on six picks – and keeping someone back from the battlefield, that gets touchy… Unless they also have _another_ required role that _also_ makes them better off back behind the lines."

"The Heart thing." Faith of all people was nodding thoughtfully. "You wear your heart on your sleeve, you'd _better_ be ready for people takin' potshots at it."

"And the King," Wesley murmured.

"Bingo!" Whistler pointed at Wesley. "Buffy and Angel, even Riley and his squad – they _had_ to be on the front lines, because they're pretty much the heavy hitters. But this fight? This one's going to be wide-scale. You need someone back in the middle giving general orders anyway."

"So, you'll be choosing our leader," Giles summed up.

A snippet of memory bobbed up in Buffy's mind for a moment: the Graduation Day battle.

"…And again you wanted Xander, didn't you?" Again, that was not a question.

Whistler grinned. "Well, _yes_. And not because he's weak or anything either! No – it's because he's _versatile_."

Almost everyone blinked at that. Xander… _versatile_? That was a new one for most of them. Sure, he had a grab-bag of minor or seldom-used skills. But still, _versatile_?

"Lost? Well, I can See further than you can. And lookin' across a fat swathe of the Multiverse, I can tell you this: the Hawaiian is the single most versatile one out of the lot of you. First, there's the fact that he's not destined to be…well, anything! You're all locked into what you do by what you are, least as far as the fight's concerned. Slayers slay, Watchers watch, vampires stay out of the light. Iowa and Texas, they would never have got involved with any of this if they'd picked different jobs. And Gingee's almost always a witch – it's something she doesn't know, so of _course_ she wants to know it.

"Xander, though? Consider just how much magic's been thrown at the kid over the years – is it so surprising that some of it sticks? He's a soldier, a super-strong hunter, a logistics whiz, a mechanic, a porn star, a nexus of chaos, a vengeance demon, a Lord of the Dance! Heh, there's this one Gingimmortal from way in the future who tracks down Xanders from different realms and turns them into tentacle monsters! For that matter: that hypothetical Xander with the all-guy foursome and the M-preg? That's actually _happened_."

"What." Buffy didn't know or _care_ who said that. For all she knew, it was _her_. The mind boggled.

The balance demon gave them all a truly _evil_ smirk. "One word: Anyanka. Honestly, the Powers mostly don't have a use for him, so his fate… _fluctuates_ , let's say. On top of all that… You all may not have noticed, but Xander Harris: more fragile in the head than he looks. But when he breaks? Hoo _boy_ does that kid break in interesting ways…

"But back to what you were saying, about me wanting Xander. Understand, he was never _mandatory_. No-one was, except for _some_ version of Buffy Summers – the bosses need roles, not faces. That said, the guys upstairs already owe a few people some favours – and _me_ picking a Xander helps cash in some in the long run."

"So," Spike snarked, "we're getting our own Droopy. As our leader, no less. This'll end well."

Whistler burst out laughing.

Drusilla burst out laughing even harder.

Everyone else stared, although Angel did snicker a bit when he got the joke.

Whistler straightened, wiping his eyes. "Did you, _miss_ the whole thing on versatility? Dear kiddies, you are _not_ being given a Technicolour Cream-Puff. I mean, you _might_ have got one – but toots here did the Slayer thing and went for the power, so why not keep on that theme?" He suddenly became serious.

"See, here's the thing. Right up till we brought Tara in, we had a whole lot of people on the line, just in case you picked _all_ the way right and ended up with one more free pick. Or you picked both reasons right, but the pick you wanted wasn't available; if that happened Buffy would have been the leader, but you'd all have had to run through names until one that _was_ popped up." Whistler paused, and looked over at a swaying, white Willow. "Ease up, girl – your original beau's in the good place, she didn't mind staying and waiting a bit.

"Anyway, I know youse well enough that it wasn't _that_ many left – and getting towards the end, there's a few who had big chances. Just for instance, there were actually _seven_ Taras available, but only the three of them had any real chance of getting picked. Same with Joyce and Dawn—"

"Wait!" Buffy exclaimed. "You actually thought… Dawn?"

"Why not? Joyce _could_ have worked as a Heart and Standard Bearer if you'd picked her that way – and if you got a free pick out of that, why not pick Dawn just to round out the family unit? Wasn't likely, I'll grant you – but still far more likely than Drogyn the Battlebrand, and I even had one of _him_ on the line."

"Who?" Fred asked.

Wesley answered, "An immortal warrior… charged with guarding the Deeper Well I believe – that's the collective gravesite of most of the Old Ones. In any case, he is about as old as Anyanka, and has been a warrior for the light for most of his life." He frowned. "Obscure but I suppose he was a legitimate possibility…"

"Now – as for the Xanders," Whistler continued, "there were three major ones of him too. The first one, I cut out with most of the rest. It's that Xander." He pointed over at the cluster of statues.

"Your Kitten was ever so grumpy. He missed the show," Drusilla interjected, from next to Willow. Then she proceeded to explain her statement with two loud smacks on Willow's butt.

Spike started sniggering very loudly.

Whistler added, "The eye would have been easy to fix. None of you lot turned up here impaired, did you? Even a teensy little empowerment for his boon-in could have been arranged – probably immunity to all mindscrews on top of a Farmboy Lite and the standard One Who Sees package. But hey, you all seem to like keeping him wrapped in cotton wool anyway, so no big loss. That one would have been favourite for Heart and Standard Bearer."

"Darn," Willow muttered. Why hadn't they thought of that? Buffy wondered.

Oh wait. She remembered this one, all the way back from sophomore year: " _Accept no substitutes._ " That explained it all, really.

"The second Xander? Well, Buffy nailed the Heart part of the test. But if she'd only nailed the Standard Bearer? Or if she missed everything, or went for her own personal favourite and left it in my hands to pick the leader? Well…"

With that, a viewscreen popped into existence. It was met with groans as Whistler walked off to the side.

The sequence began within a place familiar only to Buffy: the hell sub-dimension she'd rescued Lily… no wait, _Anne_ (Anne Steele, who now ran a shelter according to Angel's comment) and a bunch of homeless people from.

" _Wanna see my impression of Gandhi?"_

…In retrospect, the quip hadn't been her best effort.

That Buffy boosted Anne out, then jumped into the portal which was already beginning to harden—

Next was something that looked almost like a freeze-frame, of Buffy in a thick pool of inky blackness that somehow still left her fully visible to the dozen viewers on the other side of the portal. From the angle, she could _just_ make out a wobbling wall her alternate was heading towards – like the surface from an underwater shot, so she guessed she was heading through the portal – just really, _really_ slowly.

Next was a montage of short 'clips'. Faith coming to Sunnydale, finding out that Buffy wasn't there like she'd thought, only for the Scoobies' resident 'soldier' to loan her a pilfered… Riley called it a 'willy-pete' while grinning, but it exploded like a firework and toasted Kakistos but good. Angel being returned, Xander putting him down with a trank-dart while hunting Scott Hope's friend Pete but being stopped from dusting him…by _Whistler_ , who promised him a favour when the time was right. Angel was handed over to Willow as Faith watched on, who nursed him back to health with Oz's help. Then—  
the same freeze-frame of Buffy in the portal – only, she was just a _little_ closer to the surface.

The Graduation Day battle, with Faith and Wesley front and centre but Giles missing – mini-guns for the lure, boom for the win. Little snippets of the next two years – Faith working with Riley, some guy Angel said was Doyle dying, the Enjoining Spell, Darla being resurrected— and the freeze-frame, a little closer. Dracula, and Faith getting extremely annoyed at him. Angel locking Darla and Drusilla in with a roomful of lawyers. Mom dying in an unfamiliar house and found by her horrified younger daughter. Angel's gang driving through a portal. Faith diving through the same portal Buffy had – while Dawn, who was somehow _still_ there despite everything, watched on in tears—  
and the freeze-frame again, a little bit closer now.

Vi, slaying something… _someplace_ where there was snow – the new Slayer. Willow and Tara performing the resurrection of Faith, and her being _pissed_. Things running much the same from there in LA and Sunnydale for the next two years, except for a few things like Spike being dusted after painlessly hitting Faith, no Dawn (maybe Glory had kidnapped her to bring her to the ritual?), Xander marrying Anya despite the vengeful vision, and a woman Angel said was Harriet Doyle instead of Wesley. Every so often that freeze-frame would pop up, that Buffy getting closer and closer to the surface.

Buffy was just as glad time didn't seem to be running at normal speed in there – she'd have died within days otherwise just from lack of water.

The last Sunnydale battle they saw was a _whole_ lot bloodier – Robin and Andrew dying with Anya, Faith wearing the amulet and dying, Kennedy dying along with Vi in the pit. Barely a handful of mini-Slayers had made it out, Rona clutching the Scythe.

From there, most of the clips were of that Xander (again with the eye missing) – travelling all over Africa, then the Middle East, then South Asia, then South America, then finally North America, recruiting and fighting alongside dozens of Slayers just by the clips' count. In the South America arc there was a birthday party for the increasingly gaunt _de facto_ Watcher – the 'Happy Birthday Uncle Xander!' banner was a dead giveaway – and there were _hundreds_ of Slayers there. There were a few single sequences of the others – a boardroom in England with Giles (yay, Giles was still alive!) as the Chairman, Wesley as head of Research, and an open video-conference line to Xander as head of the Field Watchers. That Willow cloistered with what her Willow said was the Devon Coven. Dawn working as Wesley's apprentice. Wolfram and Hart's office (according to Fred) and the Hyperion Hotel (according to Angel), bombed out amid signs of a massive battle. And that freeze-frame dropped in every so often.

The last two clips: that Xander touching down in LAX, and that Buffy's finger just a hair away from touching the surface.

The viewscreen faded away, and they all turned to regard Whistler… who was talking to that Xander 'live' through another, smaller viewing portal. He was frozen just as stiff as 'their' (Buffy and Willow's) Xander.

"…So look there – you'll find her. She comes out in…" Whistler stopped and pulled out the pocket watch again. "Three hours. You won't remember this thing, but you'll remember talking to me and getting the info. Debt paid, Hawaiian – thanks for your time, and good hunting."

That portal closed. Whistler turned back round.

"So, that one? He could have been Leader and Heart – or Leader, Standard Bearer _and_ Heart. And… yeah, as you saw, their Powers owed him for not dusting Ratboy. This was just an easy way to pay up."

…Buffy thought she could see Whistler's point. He _would_ have been a pretty good leader. A soft one, like Giles on the global scale, but a good one. All those mini-Slayers clearly loved the stuffing out of the guy, if nothing else.

"The Xander you're getting, though? Well, Tara here is the Heart. Which leaves me to draft in a Xander that… well: _Isn't_."

Whistler's face went hard.

"There'll be no viewing of _this_ past. There's no need. All I have to do is explain why is this:"

He pointed at Buffy Summers.

"Master's Cave. Spring '97."

…So she died there, and stayed dead. But just _that_ couldn't be it… Right? Sure, he had the hots for her back then, but still!

Whistler's finger moved to Rupert Giles.

"Eyghon. Fall '97."

Buffy winced. That would have sucked… unless that Giles left after his Buffy died?

Then to Jenny Calender, a.k.a. Janna Kalderash.

"Angelus. Early '98. After Cordelia. But before Oz."

Okay, the timing sounded right…oh no. (And ' _Cordelia? Really?_ ' part of her misfiring brain snarked with a supremely ill-timed comment that she would never, _ever_ admit to having right then.)

Then to Wesley Wyndham-Price.

"Balthazar. Spring '99."

Then to Faith Lehane.

"Mayor Wilkins. Graduation '99."

' _…So Kendra died at some point too,_ ' Buffy thought faintly.

Then to Angel.

"The Scourge. Fall '99. With Doyle."

Then to Riley Finn.

"Adam. Spring 2000. With Graham, but after Forrest."

Then to Tara Maclay.

"Your family. Your 20th birthday. Three days after Vi, by Glory. Her sister Dawn did live, though."

…That made some sense. If Vi was the Slayer, then Dawn as _her_ little sister would work.

Then that damned finger moved to point at Willow Rosenberg.

"Xander, at Kingman's Bluff. Three days after Tara. Not so much luck _talking_ you down."

Buffy suddenly found her stomach trying to climb its way out of her throat. ' _Oh no oh god no Willow, he'd had to_ kill _WILLOW…_ '

The finger shifting to Winifred Burkle was almost an anti-climax.

"Bach-nal feast, Pylea. Spring '01."

Then to Spike, "The Quiet, over the Gem of Amara. Soulless. Late '01." And finally to Drusilla: "Xander, one night after Spike. Again, soulless."

Whistler's arm finally dropped. He smirked humourlessly.

"Every body you're all wearing? Every body you could have asked for, bar a grand total of two? From an alternate realm where they died. In case you didn't notice, I never actually said 'realm _s_ '."

"The other one?" Jenny asked. It stood to reason that she would be pretty clear-headed. Buffy, on the other hand, just felt lucky Angel had steadied her.

Multiverse theory, a disassociated part of her realised – for something to happen everywhere, everything _had_ to happen somewhere. And this one was the one where _everybody else died but him_.  
Oh, and _then all their bodies mysteriously disappeared_.

Oh, except—

"Dawn Day, Slayer Violet Day's little sister – and even if you knew to ask for her, she's an unbound Key."

—that realm's Dawn. One who couldn't be picked.

"And," Wesley asked. "…The Quiet? I have never heard of the like."

"Let's just say…" Whistler's humourless smirk stretched almost into a snarl. "There's a _reason_ I'm picking this guy as your leader."

And behind him, one last portal opened at the crater's lip.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** Honestly, anyone who's read my stories could have told where this was going. I even just explained why.


	13. Calm, Storm, Quiet

**Disclaimer:** still not mine. Refer first chapter.

 **A/N:** Well, crap. How long did I leave this practically done and gathering dust while doing other stuff? *sigh* Just know that I blame SpaceBattles. Sorry.  
Anyway: winding up the prequel to a story I'm probably never going to write, here we go!

* * *

 **The Usual Suspects?**

 **Chapter Thirteen: Calm, Storm, Quiet**

— **ox-oxo-xo—**

The new portal looked _very_ different. Instead of being vaguely rectangular, it was a whirling vortex with a hole in the middle – a lot like what Buffy remembered Acathla's portal looking like. And kinda like the one that Doc had used to craft from Dawn's blood, it was a dazzling electric green.

Then the edges thinned, and the centre first span into black and then into a view of the other side.

Two figures stood there. The first was a girl, about Dawn's age, tall with red hair but a lot of Dawn's features. If she had to guess, that was the Dawn Day that Whistler had mentioned. But the second… no, not Xander, though the dress sense made that kind of mistake understandable. It was… _another_ Whistler?

The other Whistler flipped a two-fingered salute at their Whistler, then vanished. Behind where he was, was a room that looked like the old Sunnydale High library – wait, it _was_ the library! Only, the stacks weren't there, and the walls were lined with men and women in a range of fashion choices from 'morning jog' through 'construction site' to 'combat zone' and with many, many weapons to match. Including some guns! Though they were on a table off to the side, inside a little mesh cage mounted onto a tabletop.

In the centre of the lower floor, there were two concentric ritual circles. In the right and far one was a dark-haired vampire that looked…a _bit_ like Xander; it was kept in the circle with heavy manacles and shackles, hogtied and propped upright on his knees. In the left and near one was…someone with a prosthetic right hand that reminded her of Adam's and a brace on the left leg, the angle let them tell that much.

Actually, a little more than 'that much'. Both of them were topless, inked up for whatever ritual they were preparing. And while the vamp was pale like all vamps, Xander – because that had to be Xander – looked like he'd been blown or cut into pieces and sewn back together. It was really, _really_ creepy – like Adam, only without the demon bits grafted on…

…oh god. Buffy's gut made another try at crawling out of her mouth.

"Well, I guess that explains the Quiet…" Fred murmured. When a couple of the others made questioning noises, she pointed to a very large square banner hanging on the far wall. It was a solid, neutral grey with white, crimson-bordered lettering in capitals and a simple font.

 **NORTH AMERICAN  
COALITION OF THE QUIET  
Est. 2003**

 **CENTRAL COMMAND  
Est. 1997**

"Damn," Angel muttered. "I knew it. He's a Holtz."

"Huh." Spike muttered back, "At least we're all human now. He can't book us on that…"

"What year is it there, I wonder?" That was Wesley.

"Fall, 2005," Whistler told them. "I think they're ready…"

Dawn reappeared, now holding a short, ornate rod. ("That's the Ferula Gemina!" Willow whispered-shouted.) She strode over to a much smaller circle equidistant to the centre of each concentric circle, aimed the rod at the sliver of space where the circles met, spoke a longish sentence in some language Buffy had never heard of, and fired.

Everything flashed.

When the picture cleared up, nothing appeared to have changed other than all three of the ritual's participants being blown off their feet. They each picked themselves up, Xander sitting up while the vampire calmly contorted himself back to his knees. One more change – the ink painting the pair had faded away.

Waitaminute… that vampire was going nuts before. What the…

A woman in her early thirties hurried over to the vampire, requisite and probably stinky herbs in hand. They heard, " _Soul is present and whole._ " Only for a number of crossbow bolts and one handgun to be raised and pointed – at Xander?

A man around Giles' age hurried over to Xander while trying to stay out of the line of fire. More stinky herbs were broken out, used slightly differently. Once more they heard, " _Soul is present and whole._ " And then, " _Ritual is a success!_ "

The weapons lowered, and two burly men came over with keys to unshackle the vampire.

"Smart," Angel noted. "Humans without souls can be just as bad as vampires…"

Once freed, the vampire walked over and reached a hand down to Xander, who reached out and took it with his left. The vampire hauled him to his feet, with a sardonic, " _At least the dex bonus is nice. But geez, this body's_ already _hungry._ "

The voice that replied was a dull rasp, like his throat was damaged; there was a odd, metallic-sounding echo. " _The things we do to find some Quiet, huh?_ "

" _Yeah…_ "

The ground on the other side of the portal shook a little, enough to knock a couple items off a table. A voice called out, " _Paradox reaction is rising, Generals…_ "

The vampire… The Xander that was a _vampire with a soul_! Buffy flat-out _gaped_ as that finally sank in. …Vampire-Xander continued, "W _ell – go see if the deal's solid, would ya? Not like the Powers and everybody else never screwed us…_ "

Franken-Xander turned around to face the portal.

"The hell is it with his _left_ eye always coppin' it?" Spike asked nobody.

In fact, Franken-Xander had gone bionic with the eye-wear. The metal-and-crystal orb looked disturbingly like a Terminator's. And if anything, the serene little smile on his lips and in his other eye somehow managed to be _even creepier_.

"Yeah," Buffy heard Angel mutter. "Definitely a Holtz…"

He managed exactly one step before being glomped by a sniffling redhead. Franken-Xander briefly pressed his cheek to the top of Dawn's head. His whisper, amplified slightly by the… voice-box? lodged in the base of his throat, _just_ carried to the portal. " _Love you… watch over him till it's done._ "

The library rumbled again, harder this time. Dawn let go, and he hobbled through the portal without another word.

No sooner had his left foot made footfall with a clunk from the brace's foot-plate, than Whistler was stepping forward, pulling a small scroll and an intricately carved stone from his coat pockets.

"As promised: one device of the agreed type and its instructions," Whistler told him.

Xander stared down at the stone for a moment, his Terminator-eye 'pupil' flashing through several different colours over the space of half a second. Then the scroll was flicked open with one hand and scanned the same way.

That little smile turned feral for a moment. He pulled a drawstring cloth bag out of a pocket, dropped both items into it, and sent it with a backward flick back through the portal, which promptly began to close. The last thing visible was Vampire-Xander catching it with his right hand, waving farewell with his left… and of all things, a chorus of voices from the guards calling, " _For one Quiet day!_ " and some flicker of common movement that might've been a salute.

—ox-oxo-xo—

The dozen recruits regarded the leader that Whistler had chosen for them with a certain professional curiosity. The jigsaw-like pattern of damage didn't look _that_ bad closer up – actually it looked more like someone had gone nuts with skin-grafting experiments. At least all the skin was human, and from Caucasian humans at that; the only sign really betraying the lie was the raised or depressed profile of some of the patches, like they were naturally grown to fit larger or smaller bodies.

Closer up, his face was a mess. Most of the upper left had been plated with angled metal and sprayed with a matte skin-finish, and most of the rest was speckled with powder-burns and the odd scar. Set into the assembly, the cybernetic eye flashed through its colours again as it scanned them all.

The 'pupil' returned to its dull red as he angled his head at Whistler. The voice did sound a little like Xander might have, if not for the throat damage and repair. "Carry-on luggage?"

Whistler said, "The clothes on your backs, and anything you can fit in the pockets."

Xander nodded. Balancing most of his weight on the right leg, he fished a small tub out from a pouch attached to the front of the brace. Opening the tub and holding it along with the lid in the prosthetic hand, he then reached up with the flesh hand and pressed a catch that made the plate adjacent to his left eye pop and swing out. Xander plucked out the bionic and dropped it in the tub with a quiet _splut_ , then closed the tub and hobbled closer, tapping the plate shut as he went.

He stopped in front of Fred and placed the tub in her hand. Then he turned on his right leg and hobbled off a ways.

Fred visibly resisted the temptation to unscrew the lid and peel inside, instead dropping it into her lab-coat pocket. She shrugged to the others. "Hey, it might be useful. I think he was scanning us with it just then."

"So, Holtz." Faith scratched her ribcage. "You meant that demon hunter you tangled with in L.A., Fang? That Holtz?"

Angel nodded. "Holtz was one of my— _His_ victims, back during his Scourge of Europe days. Or rather, his _family_ was. He carried a grudge against the Scourge of Europe for that, but especially against Angelus."

Wesley added, "Daniel Holtz formed a large band of hunters, mostly recruiting from victims he had managed to save. That band was reasonably successful, at least until his disappearance – which turned out to be Sahjhan's work." He paused. "More importantly, he was a _fanatic_ who lived solely for vengeance against Angelus and would do almost anything for it, and his followers were fanatics in turn."

Angel was pacing, actually looking nervous Buffy thought. "Before Holtz, I—" He shook his head irritably. " _He'd_ already learned to recognise the… potential, that spark of instability that let people break in that direction with enough…" the ex-vampire grimaced, " _incentive_. After Holtz almost took him down a couple times, though, he started making sure to either kill or turn them quickly. Too much risk otherwise – as Holtz proved, even ordinary humans can get lucky if they're bloody-minded enough.

"Ever since Xander learned about vampires, he's hated them. He was practically a Holtz already – the boy was just too lazy. That…" Angel paused significantly. "That, and his friends were still around to hold him back from crossing that line. This one obviously doesn't. Though, I guess he already killed his 'Scourge of Europe', so maybe he isn't so bad. Still: _tread carefully_."

Buffy could see that much, especially with the hate-on for vamps. And if Holtz had the sheer… _presence_ she could feel boiling off this Xander, it was no wonder he picked up groupies! But how did that end up with Xander making a souled-vamp version of himself? Her gut was telling her, it just wasn't that simple.

"I must wonder, though… How exactly did _that_ state of affairs come about?" Giles said.

"Two answers to that, Rip," Whistler interjected, nose buried in papers once more. "On the local front… when the time came, he didn't know where Ratboy lived. It's just that simple – but it's on a little wider scale where the bad's really at.

"Back when there was that rash of dead Slayers Lothos was racking up, the Senior Partners in that realm got 'emselves a brainwave. They got their boys and gals down at Wolfram and Hart to run a series of rituals – and what _they_ did, was… Well, basically they added a little free-running oomph to the entire realm's collective entropy mechanic, trying to speed up their long game. From then on, all those Powers' ground-level players? All the ones with any destiny to 'em? They just…" The balance demon threw out his arms in a bitter shrug, the papers ruffling in his grasp. "They all just started dying off. Fate failed them – pretty much _nothing_ the Powers did turned out right unless it was actually stopping the world from ending, and even then it was a good bet someone important would end up buying the farm doing it.

"That's where Xander and his lack of a destiny comes in – he pretty much flew under the radar, the whole way through. The Powers there haven't touched him either way, because they can't help him – they've worked out that much, they'd doom him if they even tried, so he's got as far as he has by sheer luck… well, that and experience." He sighed. "That and literally dozens of troops throwing themselves on the grenade first. That little package I passed through? That's pretty much the last endgame open to him and his." Whistler glanced over at Xander, stashing the paperwork. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go fix him up."

Xander was now standing on one foot and using the removed brace like a cane – which he obviously needed, because his left 'boot' was still attached to the bottom of the brace and there was no foot coming out of the left pants-leg. The rest of his metallic body-parts (at least the ones that could come off) were in a small pile at his foot, with the prosthetic arm laying on the ground in front of the pile.

"Right, don't bother trying to speak – I can hear you thinking anyway. Nice thought with removing what you could, but…"

Whistler made a negligent pushing gesture with one hand.

Xander practically blew apart like he'd been hit with a Mack truck, pieces of twisted metal ripping away with a shower of gore and flying off to vanish mid-air. Big wet chunks of torso and most of his metal-encrusted spine went with them, along with the entire left side of his head.

As she dry-heaved, Buffy could hear Whistler tell the still-upright body, "…I actually kinda need you dead for this bit."

From there, it was something like what had happened with Riley and Faith – the body was just upright to start with as missing body-parts flashed into existence. Less than five seconds after his death, Xander was awake, standing and glaring at Whistler with his two whole eyes.

Whistler grinned. "You're welcome."

Xander, who looked a lot more Xander-shaped now except for looking more cut due to the lack of body fat, kept right on glaring.

"Hey, at least you got your gonads back."

Xander shifted, and stopped glaring. "…And my gonads thank you."

Whistler continued, "The mind defences were converted to full-mystic, so was the durability. You lost the demonic regen and about half the strength though, so be careful with that."

"Noted," Xander said. He looked over at the others, some of who were still a little pale. His gaze hardened, but not in a hostile way – more like a decision had been reached and the uncertainty was done with. "So, details. Location of arrival – security, environment, provisions?"

"Abandoned cache, outpost and back-up research facility the other side used. It's logged as being recently damaged beyond use due to a few corrupted reports, and is now off the radar." Whistler buffed his nails on his coat lapel, hinting at just how that happened. "Their follow-up sweep is scheduled for 77 days from now, but you have a seer to warn you all if you're about to be busted. Location is ground-side on a distant planet. Base environment is automated human-friendly, the outside is tundra and has high heavy-metal concentrations in the dust, so don't linger. Provisions were dropped off by an unconnected cargo ship and stored by the automated base infrastructure four days ago."

"Food and water? Clothing? Personal items?" Xander glanced at the others, waving his hand in a 'come on' gesture. "Replacement parts and materials for repair? Arms and armour?"

"Provisions are mostly base material for experimental fabricators. There's a few days' worth of food and some uniforms lying round that should fit until you get the fabricators worked out – don't worry though, they do work. Water's condensed and filtrated on base, there's plenty."

"Communications? How about lab equipment?" Fred asked, getting the hint and getting into the spirit.

"Communications are quarantined for now, but the database and fabricators are online – the database will tell you all you need to know for now once you're there. Oh, and the base defences can be turned back on, but make sure they're reprogrammed to recognise you before you do. It's a research facility, so you should be happy with the labs."

"Any local threats?" Riley wondered. "Traps, wildlife… escaped experiments?"

"Just the base defences, no, and no."

"Just how extensive is the database you speak of?" Giles was thoughtful and becoming increasingly excited. "Does it cover the realm's history, its cultures?"

"What of this 'other side's' records, its activities?" Wesley added.

"Is the database protected?" Willow wondered. "Does it need passwords or something? Wait, what's the language like?"

Buffy watched on with awe as the party's mood charged up with anticipation and excitement at the challenge. She could feel it herself, her third wind (or was it fourth? fifth?) rising despite her mostly-boxed-away grief and mental exhaustion and the scope of the task in front of them – the way this all-business Xander had slotted right on in at the head and started taking control… and more importantly, _not_ fumbled the catch. No bitching about why _him_ , no spazzing, no power trips, just ' _what do we need to know right now_ ' broken down so everyone could catch on and see what _they_ needed to know right now. Like he was hitting the ground running, and everyone else was following the guy with a clue. …Which, fair enough – it looked like _he_ 'd at least got the blurb on the deal before all this.

And knowing what to do was half the battle. She knew that well – in her experience, once she'd thought up or been given an actual, simple plan better than 'charge!' to take out a known enemy, they usually _worked_. The first Turok'Han beating her to within an inch of her life? Lure it to a known location for Round Two, with back-up to distract it if she needed a breather. Can't take out Caleb? Simple enough, once she'd remembered taking out Caleb wasn't actually the _point_ that time. Know the game. Know the rules. If the rules say you lose, cheat like there's no tomorrow just to make sure there _is_ one. Duh! And, know the difference between when you need all hands on deck and when you really _do_ need to go it alone.

Pity she'd never seemed to realise all that till after they'd lost people.

Buffy had tried for months to be the General. She'd won a couple battles doing it. She'd even pulled off the big one, once she'd realised she could turn her dozens of whining teenage liabilities into combat-ready troopers. But honestly, she'd heard the veiled insult every time her friends or the S.i.T.'s called her 'General Buffy' – and what were they expecting, when half the time she was running off what she could remember back when Riley was around and leading his squads because she had _no clue_ what the hell she was doing?

 _He'd_ been called 'General' and no-one had blinked. Just how many people did he lead?

"Told you," Drusilla murmured so quietly that Buffy barely caught it.

' _Good point_ ,' she realised. They needed a leader who knew what they were doing, who pulled them all into place. And he seemed to be doing the job so far. The jury was out on how well it'd work, but things were beginning to look promising…

"Forget that," Faith cut across it all. "How much _space_ do we get? And are there _beds_?"

"Yeah!" Buffy blurted. How had she forgotten? 'Promising' was one thing, but there were priorities! " _Finally_ getting some privacy would be great. Tell me we get it!"

"The database, you'll find out about when you get there. Same language, and _yes_ , there's plenty of space – and privacy," Whistler told them. He muttered, "You damn horndogs…"

Buffy blushed, and she was far from the only one – though Faith just cackled.

A studiously blank-faced Xander said, "Allies?" When the others turned to look at him, he elaborated, "You're barred from that realm. You have to be. Too much interference otherwise – so you've got other people in there, organising stuff for you, or even just fighting the same enemy. Will they be open to alliance?"

Whistler smiled and clapped. " _Yes_! There is already an entrenched organisation resisting your targets and their masters. They'll be cautious about accepting allies, but you can _and must_ make contact and team up with them in order to succeed at this mission. The job's just too big for you otherwise, no matter how many Potentials you track down and Slayerise."

"And Seers?" Xander asked.

"Yeah, good point Droopy…" Spike paused, "…and remind me to come up with another good insultin' nick for you, even _I_ can feel that one hittin' a little close to home," he muttered with a wince that was matched by most of the males among them. "We're getting a seer – what about the other side?"

"Fortunately, no." Whistler shrugged. "Seers being seers, the only one reliable enough to see youse guys coming was…well, let's just say she can see the writing on the wall. She's the one who had everything set up for you realm-side – my counterpart couldn't interfere directly, but he _could_ inspire her to do that much before you arrived."

"And one more thing," Jenny asked. "If the Powers can't interfere directly – how do we get our rewards?"

"Pull the mission off, and you'll find out," Whistler told them. He clapped his hands to bring things to a close.

"All right, then – time to get this show on the road!"

And with no further warning, the whole world warped around them as Whistler disappeared.

* * *

 **Ending A/N:** And the 'prequel' (read, the actual written story) is done. As previously stated, I currently have no interest in writing the actual crossover part, let alone any intention of doing so. As with just about all of my Divergence stories (even though this _isn't_ one), TUS is essentially a stubfic. If _you_ want to develop the crossover, feel free. If you want to write it with a different setup for a different future or to cut out the gratuitous Xander and/or other characters, then that's even better! I'd love to read something like this done seriously… which, make no mistake, _this isn't_. If it was, I would have gone to much greater effort closing off some of those minor canon-gaps for the AR's (obvious instance: RJ in the Tara arc).

That said, a possible ending to the hypothetical crossover will probably end up following anyway – just to close a few loose ends and answer outstanding questions about Powers and their boons.

(I'll add this now, though, for those curious: Lone-Wolf!HHHard!Xander as a leader would indeed have been ridiculous - which is why I didn't do it. Holtz-esque!Xander as a leader...is almost as ridiculous, and actually I didn't go with that either. But that's 3rd-person close-POV for you - sometimes people are just gonna jump to the conclusion that seems right but only _mostly_ is. Simply put, I went with this Xander because (a) he's led and liaised with large groups, including military and militias, and done it well (like the 2nd Xander), (b) he's _really_ not going to be able to think of these new doppelganger!compatriots as friends for a long time if ever ( _un_ like the 2nd Xander), and (c) another reason (the main one, in fact) which ties into the whole 'Powers and their boons' thing.)

Also, I may well end up fleshing out and/or revising some of the AR's and using them for proper Divergence fics. Something like AtS S5:Ep18(?) "Origin", where Angel gets the memory of this Wesley's arc pre-reality shift and Wesley gets both during the Connor vs. Sahjhan fight (probably a oneshot, I'll grant). Or Buffy having to fit into a new paradigm after nearly a decade stuck in the portal out of the hell sub-dimension, in a world where Faith pretty much took her destined place and now there's hundreds of Slayers running around and most of the people she knew are dead.

…Probably not the Drusilla one, though. That's another one I'd love to see someone else do justice to, speaking as someone who knows I wouldn't.

In any case: thanks for taking the time to read this, especial thanks to those who took the extra effort to review/fave/follow, and I hope you enjoyed it. Till next time...


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